


Past Perfect (They Had Been Wandering)

by MirandaTam



Series: Catalysis [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: A significant amount of light flirting in most (if not all) quadrants, Alternia-Focused, Multi, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Species Swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2017-12-11 22:35:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 25,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirandaTam/pseuds/MirandaTam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You knew that things would be different after you won the game. You just didn't know that you'd end up here.</p><p> </p><p>After SBURB has been won, you wake up, back in the pre-game universe. Sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_“What are you DOING?”_

The voice stops you in your tracks. It’s not every day that a troll dares question your authority, so it deserves some attention. You glance at the lowblood, cornered and quivering, then turn your attention to the interloper.

It’s a young troll, probably barely even old enough for the Drones to have come the first time. She’s glaring up at you, absolutely no fear in her odd, pale eyes, and a glance at her sigil shows the same hue as your own. An up-and-comer, perhaps, to usurp your position. It’s happened before, though not recently. They learned after the first few deaths.

“Well, what do you think you’re doin’, most holy of miracle sisters? Interruptin’ my business and all?” you growl towards her, hunching over, all of your imperious height towering over even the tips of her horns.

“ _I_ think I’m intervening in a fit of minor folly,” She snaps back calmly. “What did he do to you?”

“Got in my motherfucking way.” You’ve seen trolls like this before, highbloods corrupted by the nonsensical mutterings of lowbloods, silly sayings of equality. Motherfucking blasphemous.

“Well, he’s hardly likely to do that again, now, is he?” she asks, still unflustered despite the situation.

You roll your eyes, not bothering to respond, and turn back to the lowblood. There’s a spark of hope in his eyes, one that quickly dies out once he sees that his protector has failed in her apparent task.

“You know,” she calls out as you stalk towards your prey. “The more you kill, the harder it will be to control them.”

You pause. You haven’t heard this argument before.

“The more you kill, the more they hate you. Nothing caliginous, obviously, but for every lowblood you kill, two more will vow revenge. Eventually, even Her Imperiousness won’t be able to keep them down.” You can practically hear her smirk, and what’s this, being able to sense the actions of a troll you met less than a minute ago? “The more you let live, the first offence, the more will stay out of your way, the less will vow revenge, the empire keeps turning, on and on.”

You turn towards her again, and this time the lowblood scurries away, ducking into the shadows and beyond where you care to chase him. You let him go. “And what’s to stop us from culling all the blasphemers of the mirthful motherfucking messiahs?”

She smirks again, and you can practically feel the trap of words she’s set for you closing in. “Workforce. Who else will do the menial, but necessary, tasks.”

She is an anomaly. Trolls, especially highbloods, have a tendency to use weapons before words, to try to use brute force and smash through a problem before considering another way around. This troll – this diminutive young troll with eyes older than they have any right to be – has reasoned you away from your goal. By all rights, you should be furious. She has publicly defied you, a crime which by itself can warrant death, depending on your mood. But you’re not even angry.

You relax after a moment, when you realize what this emotion you’re feeling is, and you grin, a wide, toothy one to complement her small smirk. “Well then, what’s your name, most precious sister of miracles?”

“It’s not quite conventional, by this society’s standards, but… I suppose you can call me Rose.”


	2. Chapter 2

She tells you that ‘The Grand Highblood’ is a ridiculous title for you to have claimed, and you tell her that titles aren’t exactly a choice, they’re what society gives you. Every troll knows that.

She shrugs and informs you that there is no way she will call you that in casual conversation. You banter back and forth, her sarcastic wit sharp and biting against your aged and cynical sense of humor. You are middle-aged, technically, but old in a world of lower castes and the cutthroat court of the Alternian empire. She is new to the court, but her soul somehow seems to have comprehended eons.

Rose, an odd name to fit an odd troll. She is incomprehensible. She stays up late, untill well past when the sun has risen, researching faraway planets in the deepest corner of the galaxy, searching for something. Some _one_ , you think, as she casually glances over the lists of new recruits, of trolls apprehended, of every and any census she can get her hands on.

She evades your questions, deflecting and distracting, until one day you sigh in exasperation, exhausted at seeking to understand this strange enigma. “Moirails tell each other everything.” And it isn’t until after the word has left your mouth that you realise what you have said.

Moirails.

She pauses for a moment, shocked, for once, into silence. She is clearly wary of putting names to relationships, one of many reasons you have not asked for a journey into the pale quadrant before. But, for once, Rose smiles resignedly and nods her head in acquiescence. “I have a story to tell you,” she says quietly, a tacit approval of the quadrant’s official label. “And it’s very long, so we should probably be seated for this.”

She tells you her story, and you realize that she was correct about its length – in its entirety, a whole day is spent explaining this world she reveals to you, her prose as purple as your blood.

It’s a story that begins with aliens, and a game, and a small world called Earth that quickly spirals into chaos. There are monsters, and tricksters, and demons, and the aliens eventually work together with a group of twelve trolls. Some of the trolls are familiar – the heiress that she mentions, her moirail-consort waxing red, and the corsair, though the coursair’s scourge you find unfamiliar. There’s one more you quickly recognize, the heretic-blood, and this in itself is almost enough to make your blood boil, but this is your moirail and so you listen. You listen through the fantastical account, the universe-wrending stories and plots, and when she finishes you’re no longer sure about what to say.

“What happened?” it’s the only appropriate response. The door opened, the winners claimed their prize, and then nothing.

Rose smiles bitterly. “I woke up on Alternia.”

This is an enigmatic response, but less confusing than others she’s given. Whatever it may mean in eventuality, you understand what it is that makes everything bitter: she is alone. Her alien knight and heir and witch, the jadeblooded locutor, are not here. She is all alone.

Not anymore, though. That’s what moirails are for.


	3. Chapter 3

You almost don’t believe it when they bring you the troll that’s somehow flown over and landed on your deck.

Firstly, you don’t believe it because nobody that high on the hemospectrum should be running from the empire unless they had done something _really_ bad (like you, heh).

Secondly, this troll has _wings_.

The wings are dark blue, a few shades lighter than his blood, and edged in green. A goofy, sheepish grin sits on his face, below a pare of crooked rectangular glasses.

“Hi,” he says, friendly for all that he’s just been manhandled into chains for landing on the ship without your permission. “You’re Marquise Mindfang, then?”

You raise one perfect eyebrow. “And if I was, who would that make you, out of curiosity? Mysterious winged trolls don’t often land on my ships, and when they do, let’s say I have reason to be suspicious of them.”

“Oh, sorry!” He grins even wider, if that’s possible. “I just needed to get away from civilization in a rush. Um, I could probably help out with your fleet and piratey stuff if you want to untie me?”

You roll your eyes. Stowing away then offering to do work is, perhaps, one of the oldest tricks in the book, one that you attempt to thwart at every opportunity. However, he didn’t technically stow away, and he can _fly_ …

“I’m pretty good with wind,” he adds in after a few moments of your contemplative silence, and that seals the deal.

“Hm. You can keep storms away, provide us with a wind, keep us from being becalmed?”

He nods, and opens his mouth to say more, but you raise a hand to silence him.

“Get us safely and quickly to our destination and I might just let you live. Maybe. If you’re lying…” you trail off ominously. You motion to one of the guards to unlock his chains, and you each spit in your hands and shake, to seal the deal.

You wonder how he’s still this excited; he was literally just captured by pirates, and yet you find yourself wanting to grin along with him. You’re Marquise Spinneret Mindfang, dreaded corsair of the nine seas, and you do _not grin like this, damnit_.

In the end, John ends up becoming a permanent member of your crew.


	4. Chapter 4

You join the Cavalreapers. You know that you won’t get very far, with your blood, but they’re the group that travels furthest, sees the most things. Your most likely bet for finding others or getting home. Maybe even both, if you’re lucky.

Probably neither, then.

You join anyway, and rise through the ranks at a reasonable pace, finally ending up in one of the… odder units of the military.

You’re officially called the 69th Irregulars, you call yourselves the Lost Boys, and the rest of the Cavalreapers call you ‘those damn lowbloods.’ Nobody is higher than teal, and the leader of the group is a brownblood called the Summoner. You immediately see why he’s been promoted so high, and are suddenly very glad that you decided not to reveal your two new appendages. You don’t want that kind of attention.

When you first join the unit, the Summoner sits you down to have a talk with you.

“First of all,” he says, “No hemospectrum bullsh*t. Any of the higher-bloods try to boss you around, you show ‘em to me. You try to boss around anyone lower than you, I’ll hear about it.” He pauses. “Though… you don’t have many lower than you _to_ boss around? Whatever. That bit’s the standard speech, everybody who joins us gets it.”

You shrug. “Fine by me.”

“We have standard procedure for when the drones come, nothing fancy, man. Any specialties you have that I haven’t heard about?”

“Well…” you try to decide what to say. What to tell him, what to not. Secrets are notoriously hard to keep in units as close as this one, but you can hide your wings if you’re careful. “I’m pretty good with a sword. Not standard, I know, but I’ve been training since I was a wiggler.” The troll terms slide out of your mouth with barely any hesitation now, after a few sweeps. You still need to watch for the occasional accident, but for the most part you’ve accepted the new terminology.

He raises an eyebrow. “Sword? That’s a highblood weapon. Not many will take kindly to that.”

“Not many will take kindly to a lowblood in charge of an entire unit,” you point out.

He grins. “Yeah, okay. Why don’t you grab your sword and show us what you got?”

You show him, and he is duly impressed.

“Man, those are some b*tchin’ reflexes,” he muses. “You’ve been training since you were a wiggler?”

You can tell what he’s wondering – if the rebellion had been training like that, if they had been this proficient with their respective weapons… things might have gone a different way. But you’re not supposed to know anything about that, so you keep quiet.

“My lusus wasn’t there much,” you say instead. “Had to learn fast to stay safe, then I just kept learning.”

He nods, accepting your – mostly – fabricated story. “You know, we’re not the most accepted unit of the Cavalreapers. Lots of the higher-ups would prefer that we weren’t here, if you take my meaning. If you ever transfer out, you won’t advance as fast. And we’re not exactly the safest company. Knives to the back during a fight when we’re working with other units aren’t exactly rare. You sure you want to do this?”

“I know what I’m getting into,” you respond. “Better a knife to the back in a battle than one to the throat in a ‘coon. At least I can fight in a battle.”

“Well, then, welcome to the Lost Boys, Private Strider.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aah! Sorry I uploaded the wrong chapter - here's the real chapter 5.

It’s a little shocking, how well you work together. He had needed someone, and you had needed someone, and those two someones might as well have been each other, but it’s not until after the fact that you realize the true extent and purpose of moirallegiance.

It had always been the mystery quadrant, to you – matespritship was easy enough to understand, as was kismessitude. Auspisticism had been a little confusing, but Kanaya had explained it well. Moirallegiance, though… you had never understood just how much another person would complete you. How someone else would be so beneficial to your mental health, and how you could help him in return. You balance out his rage with your logic, his fury with your cool intellect. He helps you relax, allows you an outlet with which to express your feelings, someone to help you express yourself when the grimdark rage fills your mind. He hates the political game, but is forced to participate in it; you play in his stead, learning of the highblood court and Alternian high society as a whole, arranging alliances and conflicts and establishing puppet strings and chessboards. This is what you’ve always wanted to learn, and you take to it like a seadweller to water. You spend a few sweeps in a casual kismessitude with the Orphaner Dualscar, only to break it off on disappointingly amiable terms.

And all the while, over sweeps and sweeps, you search for any sign of the others, any sign of Earth. And you find none. No mention of apelike mamallian aliens, no planets covered in green foliage with blue oceans. You can’t even find any galaxies that look like the Milky Way in the Grand Alternian Library’s Database of Galaxies. You search databases and records for any mention of your friends, but they, like your planet, are either not here or so well hidden that even sweeps of searching turns up nothing.

He is the most helpful on days when you have almost given up. When you are so tired of searching and hunting and being _alone_ , when you want to cry and scream and tear your hidden wings from your body, when your hatred at their absence transfers over to them and you almost feel black for them.

This is when you realize the true meaning of moirallegiance, as he holds you tight in a pile on the floor and lets you cry and scream and express yourself. He teaches you how he paints on the walls, and you find real paint that isn’t troll blood for those occasions. You paint your friends, humans and trolls alike, along with Skaia and Derse and the Land of Light and Rain. You paint what will happen in the visions you still receive as the Seer of Light, and then paint over them.

He asks all the right questions. Nothing so silly as ‘who is this’ or ‘why are you doing this,’ but questions like ‘what is going on’ and ‘what do we need to do.’

It’s nice to have a ‘we,’ you think. Not just an ‘I’ or a ‘you.’ Sburb was highly individualized, and nobody did much on the meteor. You suppose there was a brief ‘we’ during the few days leading up to the final battle, but that area is a bit of a fast-paced, panicked blur in your mind.

You are worried about how much to tell him, though. Despite all your support and hinting in the opposite direction, he remains the leader of the subjugglators, and thus it is technically his job to cull you and your friends if he finds out what you will do.

You’re not especially looking forward to enlightening him on that topic.


	6. Chapter 6

“Now, we have to be very careful at this port,” Spin announces loudly. “Those of you who were with us five sweeps ago, when we had to run from that squad of Threshecutioners, you know this.”

There’s a groan from some of the older crew, the ones who know what she’s talking about. You’re really interested about this apparently dangerous port, though, so as soon as she’s done ordering everyone around you ask her what the danger is.

She grimaces. “It’s not a port, really, more like a glorified beach. But it’s all nice and hidden and out-of-the-way, and nobody will dare go there in search of us. The danger is that there are these two trolls – greenbloods – who live there. This used to be the perfect place, no danger at all, until the second one showed up. She’s got these ridiculously overpowered psionics–”

“Something you know nothing about,” you chime in.

She mock-glares at you. “Shut up. Anyway, she’s got these extremely powerful energy blasts that’ll fry anything to a crisp, as well as push whatever’s left all the way to the nearest port. Further, if she’s feeling particularly annoyed. All we have to do is follow their rules: no trying to kill them, no trying to kill anyone, no looting while we’re anchored there, and above all else do not harm any wildlife.” She turns away and begins cursing. “DID I HIRE COMPLETE IDIOTS? WE HAVE A TAILWIND, NOT A HEADWIND, GET THOSE SAILS UP OR I SWEAR I WILL CULL SOMEONE!”

You fly up to the crow’s nest. The troll on watch barely gives you a glance. You do this a lot.

Ignoring the other troll, you look out towards the shore, straining your eyes for bits of detail. Mostly you can just see the green, blue, and pink of Alternian trees, but a brown, rocky mountain rises in the distance, with foothills closer to the shore. The beach itself is rocky and craggy, and as the ship turns you see a previously-hidden cove, its center deep enough to not sink the small fleet.

You stop studying the shore and start manipulating the wind, easing each ship through the cove’s small entrance, so you miss the appearance of the two trolls that Spin mentioned. But when you look back up, they’re standing side-by-side on the shore.

“That’s them?” you call, spiraling down back to the deck. “The two greenbloods you mentioned?”

She grimaces. “Yes. Unfortunately. Can you stay on the boat while I negotiate the terms of our stay? Just in case? And hide your wings. These people are the least likely to alert the empire, but better safe than sorry.”

You frown, but nod. You need a safe-ish port, so messing up these negotiations would be bad, as would getting kidnapped and sold to the empire as a traitorous mutant, or whatever they would come up with.

Spin and five others lower one of the rowboats and start towards shore the minute you’ve finished dropping the anchors, and everyone watches anxiously from the railings. It’s too far to hear everything, but you can see that there’s a minor argument going on. One of the greenbloods – the one with long, ridiculously curly hair – is waving her arms around in the air. The other one, also with long hair, but straight and falling to her mid-back instead of her knees, puts a hand on her shoulder. You can’t make out facial detail very well, but eventually everyone seems to calm down and one of the trolls who accompanied Spin to land signs out that an agreement has been made and you all let out a sigh of relief.

You’re one of the first into the second rowboat and the first out of it, but it’s still a fairly long row from the ships to the beach. You spend the time impatiently observing the two new trolls. The one with curly hair is watching the oncoming boat, and as you get closer you can see that her horns resemble cat ears. Her symbol also looks vaguely familiar – where have you seen it before?

The other troll is still chatting with Spin, her back to the sea, so you can’t see her face, but you can tell that her horns are earlike, similar to her companion’s but different. Dog ears, maybe.

The minute the bottom of the boat scrapes against the sand, you jump out, not bothering to notice if anyone else is speaking before beginning to talk. “Have I ever said how ridiculously good it feels to stand on solid–”

“But seriously, fuckass, if you so much as _touch_ one animal–”

You freeze.

Long, straight hair, dog ears, but it _couldn’t_ be…

She spins around. “ _John?_ ”

“ _Jade!_ ”

You almost trip, sprinting up to see her, but she gets to you first, and you crush each other in a paralyzing hug.

“It’s been so long, how long have you been here, do you know what _happened_ –”

“How are you, have you been safe, have you found any of the others, what _happened?_ ”

“If you would care to enlighten the rest of us?” Spin breaks in to your reunion.

“Yeah. Not often that I agree with Mindfang, but who’s this, Jade?” the cat-woman adds on.

“Oh! Sorry–”

“Sorry, I should have said…”

The both of you speak at the same time again. You close your mouth and motion Jade to continue.

“This is John, I think I may have told you about him once or twice? We’ve known each other since we were young. Stuff happened, though, and shenanigans, and I haven’t seen you in what, seven sweeps?”

You barely manage to hide your surprise; that’s longer than you’ve been here. “Closer to five sweeps for me,” you say quietly, loud enough for Jade but not for Spin or Jade’s friend, standing a few meters away. “But anyway,” you say louder, so everyone can hear, “We really need to catch up!”

“In a bit,” Spin says. “First, explanations.”

“It’s pretty much like Jade said,” you say. “We were friends when we were wigglers and we just haven’t seen each other in _ages_.”

She gives you a _look_. One that says she’s not getting the whole story and she knows it.

You shift nervously, then stop fidgeting when you realize it makes you look like you’re lying.

She rolls her eyes and sighs. “Fine. Go off and catch up or pail or whatever you two want to do, but I will be getting an explanation later.”

“ _Spin!_ We don’t – She’s not – ugh, whatever.” You roll your eyes back at her, then grab Jade’s hand. “Come on, show me around!”

She grins and drags you forward, towards the forest. “Call me if anyone breaks anything, Disciple! I’ll probably be within explosion-hearing distance!”

You tell Jade where you’ve been these five sweeps – getting into an encounter with an angry seadweller, finding Spin’s crew, adventuring with them. In turn, she explains what she’s figured out so far – they’re in the Alternian past, long before any of the trolls that you know have been born. She tells you the details of the Sufferer’s rebellion, and the Disciple’s part in it.

Jade hasn’t found the others – Dave and Rose are still completely off the map. “The good news,” she says, “is that we’re god tier – we won’t die of old age. We can wait until the universe dies if we have to.” She frowns a bit. “But that may just trap us in a loop, if we get sucked into the game again…”

The cat woman – the Disciple – comes looking for you eventually, and Jade gives you a small communications device before you’re dragged away to the ships again. “It’s solar charged, so you don’t really need to worry about the battery much, just leave it out before you fall asleep and it should be fine. Call me a lot – I like it here, but it gets really lonely sometimes!”

You promise to call at least once every perigee, more often if something important happens, but when you get back to the ships you think you may have some trouble doing that, because Spin may murder you. Figuratively, of course. Probably. She has that look on her face, like the one from before but worse. This one says, ‘Something is up. You will tell me what you know or I will castrate you and throw you to the drones.’ She takes you to her cabin and sits you down before fixing you with a stern look and asking one question, consisting of two words.

“ _God tier?_ ”

… You are so screwed.


	7. Chapter 7

You stand tall, back straight, waiting for the inspectors to come in to review your unit. You’re standing near the front, as befits your rank, just a few trolls away from the Summoner, who’s giving some last minute instructions. “Remember, look directly ahead, don’t go looking around or nothing. Strider, don’t show off your sword. Answer anything they ask you directly and concisely, none of that sarcastic crap. Strider, really don’t mention your sword, there’ll be a highblood here and we _really_ can’t afford to tick her off. _Do you get it?_ ”

“Yeah,” you reply. “I got it the first five times.” You can’t really blame him, though – a few perigees ago, some midblood with delusions of grandeur thought he could best a measly lowblood at swords. It hadn’t ended well for him, and his matesprit, who was higher up on the spectrum, hadn’t taken it very well.

“But seriously, everyone has to be at their absolute best. Rumor, for once, hasn’t gotten around to everyone, but this is the Grand Highblood’s moirail who’s inspecting us today. You’ve all heard of her. The Overseer.”

Everyone nods; she was almost as famous as the Grand Highblood himself, and almost as feared. With her moirail, it was said, at least you knew someone was trying to kill you before you were killed. With her, if she had a vendetta against a troll, any number of things could happen – their quadrants could be called away to a distant place the day before the drones came, they could be selected for a ‘random’ in-depth investigation by legislacerators, they could just mysteriously vanish, never to be seen again. However, she never struck without reason, and she often stopped her moirail from the senseless killing he was so prone to.

“So,” the Summoner continued, “Everyone needs to be really careful not to piss her off or do anything wrong.”

“Yes, Sir,” everybody replies at varying speeds and degrees of enthusiasm.

“Now, everyone, attention!”

You all stand as straight as possible, staring ahead not fidgeting. Normally, you’d been allowed to keep your shades, so people don’t notice your oddly light eyes, the same as the color you typed in. Unfortunately, the Summoner had vetoed your shades for this inspection, saying that having weird eyes was better than being asked to take off your shades, then them noticing your weird eyes.

So you stare ahead, shadesless, eyes bare for the world to see. You can hear the Overseer making her way down the line of Cavalreapers, slowly, pausing to comment every so often.

When she finally gets to you, you have to make an effort not to examine her, or look directly at her, staring straight ahead while she inspects you. She frowns a little, then starts questioning you. “Name and rank?”

“Private Strider.”

You see her nod, as if a theory she had was confirmed by this answer, and you can’t help but glance briefly down to examine her, and her eyes catch you.

They’re old, but that’s to be expected for a decades-old highblood. What catches you, though, is their color. You know that color. You’ve only seen it maybe five times in total, on a screen sweeps ago, but you still know it as well as your own name. And her name.

Rose gives you a small, secretive smile. She knows who you are, and also that you know who she is, and moves on to the next troll. But your mind is buzzing, because behind that smile was something wrong.

You keep staring ahead, resisting the urge to break out of the line and ask all the questions you suddenly have. What is she _doing_ here? How?

“Dismissed.” You turn around to leave; to do otherwise would attract attention and bring trouble. “Except for Private Strider.” Or not.

You approach Rose and the Summoner.

“I heard that you were skilled at swordplay,” she says, in those soft, strict tones. “I happen to be a conniseur of fine works, and recently came across a few swords which I would like evaluated, but none of my staff appear to be up to the work. Could you, perhaps, help me judge their quality or origin?” An excuse to talk alone.

“Gladly,” you reply, bowing low. Even though this is Rose, highbloods are tricky.

She leads you to a side room and firmly shuts the door before turning to face you.

You stare at each other for a few seconds.

“Let’s be honest, neither of us expected the other one to be here,” you say finally. “I mean… I expected… well…”

“Exactly,” she says, even though you haven’t really said anything. “I… ugh, I shouldn’t have come here!” She shakes her head. “This is… dangerous. I expect you to understand, more than the others would?”

You nod. “So you haven’t found anyone else?”

“No,” she growls, frustrated. “I’ve been here for twenty-seven sweeps, and you’re the first one I’ve encountered.”

“I haven’t seen anyone, either,” you tell her. “I was starting to think I was the only one here, but I’ve just been here for, what, two sweeps? Something like that.”

She glances at the door. “We can’t stay long, people will begin to get suspicious. Hm… I won’t be able to contact you very often, but if you find someone else, try to get something through to me. It’ll probably get through if you label it with my name, but _do not label it with yours_. It is imperative that Her Imperious Condescension does not discover any connection.”

“I’m not stupid,” you reply calmly. “I know better than to do something silly like that.”

She smiles. “My apologies. I’ve been dealing with idiots for decades. Just, one more bit of advice, before we must part ways. When you go after Mindfang – and you will, eventually – be extremely careful. Do not be in the first wave of attackers if you can help it, and under no circumstances get near Mindfang herself.”

“Sensible. You be careful, too. Politics can get messy, and most troll politicians are fucking insane. Watch out for yourself, Lalonde.”

“Will do. Stay safe, or at least as safe as you can. I don’t know how I could explain it to the others if I lost track of you, Dirk."


	8. Chapter 8

You knew this was a horrible idea.

Like, on the scale of horrible ideas, where ‘one’ was ‘leaving John by himself for a few hours’ and ‘ten’ was ‘letting Karkat try to explain romance’, this was an eleven, possibly a twelve. You might even go so far as to say a thirteen. Thirteen point five.

You had all of time to explore – sometime safe would have been better. Some time, some place more peaceful, less likely to get you nabbed by the empire by virtue of your blood. But no. For some reason, you stick around this godforsaken era. And just your luck, someone saw you arrive and figured you were a powerful psionic. Not entirely wrong, you guess, but far enough from the truth to be safe. Well, not safe. Pretty unsafe, actually, especially considering they found some kind of manacles to negate your time traveling, so you were well and officially captured by the Great Alternian Empire.

You are so fucked.

They undo the manacles dump you in a bare cell – just a recuperacoon and a load gaper – and slam the door.

You’re left to your own devices for a few hours, during which you try (and fail) to break out of the room, which also can somehow stop you from time traveling. You _really_ need to get out of here. You know what the Alternian Empire does to psionics that they’ve decided to capture. They’re forced to work as slaves, linked to ships or controlled by threats, usually to an early death.

You really don’t want to think what will happen to you, given your inability to die of most causes and all that.

Three hours, twelve minutes, and 14.893 seconds later, the door slams open again (Do highbloods do anything but slam doors? Is it encoded in their genetic code, or something?) and you realize just how fucked you are because this is the

Grand

Fucking

Highblood.

You barely paid any attention during the three-year long meteor trip, but you do have vague memories of Karkat ranting about ancestors, and you’ve learned a bit since then. Enough to know who this is, and how likely he is to murder you.

“So,” he says after a few moments of examining you, “Who are you, blasphemy-blooded motherfucker?”

Trolls don’t really go in for names much, in adulthood, and you’re pretty much an adult now, right? (well, you can pass for an adult. In certain circles. Most of which don’t include actual adults.) Adult trolls have titles. “… the Knight.”

He looks at you again, face inscrutable behind all that crazy-ass juggalo makeup, and is silent. “Guess so, then,” he mutters after a few minutes, seemingly to himself.

You know better than to ask what he means, despite your previous sixteen years growing up as one of the snarkiest motherfuckers around. Not ticking off highbloods, at least, has been drilled into you over the four sweeps you’ve spent as a maroonblood. The lowest of the low. You don’t question highbloods, ever, but _especially_ not in this decade. Or what you think is this decade – a few things may have gotten messed up during your last jump.

The Highblood examines you for a few more minutes, and you decide it’s safe enough to cross your arms and glare at him.

He snaps his fingers to summon some trolls outside and growls something to them, quiet enough so that you can’t quite catch it.

They approach you and grab your arms, re-fastening the manacles around your wrists and marching you out of the cell and into the main building.

This is the Grand Highblood’s mansion. The home of arguably the second-most dangerous troll in the entire Empire. And you are being dragged somewhere mysterious within it. You are so doomed. You have been doomed so much that the doom-o-meter has exploded, due to the presence of so much doom.

After many twists, turns, and near-misses on stairs (which you have been duly warned about), you’re shoved into a small suite of rooms. These rooms are different – lighter, more open. Somebody lives here.

You’re still able to walk, but you’ve been doing that for a while and you can’t open any of the doors anyway, so you sit down in one of the chairs and start trying to work the cuffs open.

Approximately thirty minutes and 37.463 seconds later, when you’ve mostly given up on getting the manacles open and are working on escape plans for the future, assuming you have one, the door opens and shuts again quietly.

It’s a female troll, a purpleblood well into adulthood. Her sign is familiar – you’ve seen badly-taken pictures of this troll in the newspapers. She’s the Highblood’s moirail, the Overseer, by most accounts a very pacifying influence. You’re still completely dead, of course, but probably not _as_ dead. Hopefully.

The look on her face, though, makes you stop whatever you were doing. She’s shocked, surprised, scared… all the things a highblood shouldn’t be. And there’s an odd feeling in the back of your head, like you should know what’s going on. Like you should know this troll.

“Dave?”

You stiffen. You know her now, should have recognized her before, but couldn’t believe it.

“Rose?”

She recovers almost instantly, her face smoothing back to its blank mask, revealing nothing of her emotions. You’ve always been able to see through it, but now you can’t tell what she’s thinking. “What are you doing here? Why haven’t you escaped yet?”

You roll your eyes. “Hey, Dave. How are you doing, Dave, I haven’t seen you in sweeps. Hey, happen to have any clue what happened, to make us wake up as trolls? Hi, Rose, I’m doing pretty well, I guess–”

“ _You do not understand the gravity of the situation._ ” Her face is expressionless, but her eyes are blazing fury and terror. “We need to get you out of here.”

“Really? I had no clue. They put some sorta cuffs on me. They stop me from time traveling. Haven’t been able to get them off, and I’ve been trying for–”

“Show me.”

You show her, grumbling under your breath about interrupting highbloods.

She inspects the handcuffs, the ones that you’ve been unable to break after trying for thirty minutes, and casually snaps them off your wrists.

You gape at her, at least as much as you ever gape (so barely changing your expression). “What the hell?”

“Highblood.” She smirks, the first true expression on her face since she said your name. “Where have you been – no, wait, you really need to get out of here.”

“Mostly traveling around, visiting different years, getting captured by the empire, nothing special. Hung around with this other time traveler, the Handmaid, for a bit, but she was a tiny bit of an insane sociopath, so I figured I could manage on my own. Some asshole legislacerator or something saw me get here and knocked me out from behind, then they locked me in these cuffs. I dunno why, but they don’t let me time travel. As I said before.”

She rolls her eyes. “Only you,” she mutters quietly to herself. “Look, we have to get you out of here. You should be able to time travel again – I’ll turn the alarms off for a period of three minutes at midday.” She pauses briefly. “You say you traveled with the Handmaid… hm.” She gets a pensive look on her face, one of those Rose looks that you’ve been afraid of since you first saw it on her face. “If possible – and _only_ if safe – I need you to go find the Expatriate Darkleer. If there’s nobody there… here, I’ll write a list.” She grabs a piece of paper and a pencil out of her pocket. “If you find anyone, tell me. A letter should do, but under no circumstances sign your name, or that of anyone else. If the Condesce finds out… bad things will happen.”

You have no idea how she’s writing and planning at the same time, but somehow she is.

“Here.” She hands you the piece of paper and pauses, for the first time looking uncertain and nervous. She suddenly grabs you in a tight hug, clinging on for dear life. “I love you,” she says quietly, slipping the paper into your pocket as you hug her back. “Stay safe.”

“You, too,” you whisper. “Don’t let those crazy highbloods get you down. And try not to become even more of a snob than you were already.”

She steps back, blinking lavender tears out of her eyes, and resumes her mask. “Go.”

You go.


	9. Chapter 9

He travels away in a… not a flash of light, you think. More the absence of light – a flash of dark, a maroon indent on the skin of the universe.

You close your eyes and inhale gently, feeling the lightest brush of a breeze enter through the window. The faintest sounds of waves lapping at the shore of the beach are audible, and the cry of the Alternian seabirds of prey echoes across the dark mauve waves of the ocean. You exhale, and see the world turn.

She must not find out.

This is a mantra, echoing through your head at the slightest hint of danger. She must not find out that you are not what you seem, that the others are not what they seem, that it is only a matter of a few hundred sweeps before you will attempt to overthrow her.

Her Imperious Condescension is known to be most unforgiving about that sort of thing.

You banish the thought from your head and focus on the fact that you have found Dave.

_Dave._

That meant… you were not alone. You knew that already, you suppose, with your discovery of the other Strider working his way through through the military ranks, but it was not quite the same. You knew Dirk for the four days leading up to what resembled a victory; you have known Dave since you turned ten and got a pesterchum.

You sit down, not on the more comfortable couch, but on the chair by your desk. You arrange yourself precisely, lacing your fingers together and resting them on the center of the desk. Closing your eyes, you breathe slowly, letting your heartrate calm and slow, clearing and focusing your mind.

“You can come in now, Kurloz,” you say, loud enough so he can hear it from his position on the other side of the door.

He enters quietly, and you open your eyes and smile up at him weakly.

“I… apologize for my unusual reaction. I…”

He doesn’t smile, but you get the impression of a smile anyway as a comforting hand rests on your shoulder. Your moirail does not speak much any more, but you’ve been with him long enough to understand him without words getting in the way.

“We – him and I – are not pale, in case you were wondering,” you add after a few moments of silence. “If anything, it would be closer to ashen, though not perfectly. There’s a word in another language that describes it well, but it doesn’t exist in Alternian. It’s something of a mix of rivalry – not concuspient – but not hate. More like friendly competition, but closer. It suffices when the pale quadrant is not filled, but it is by no means a substitute for a moirail.”

He nods, accepting your explanation, though he had not asked for it. You know that it was just a tiny seed of doubt, buried deep inside, but without ample explanation it would have festered and grown.

You stand up slowly, then turn around and face him. He still towers over you, but over the sweeps you have acquired a certain bearing that puts you on a more equal level.

He embraces you lightly, reaching around you to place a thin folder on your desk, then smiles and exits your rooms.

You furrow your eyebrows at his odder-than-usual behavior and turn your attention to the file he’s left you.

The first page confuses you. It’s an analysis of the movements of Marquise Mindfang, whom you’ve been keeping tabs on in the hopes that she could lead you to something, but over the past few sweeps the data has been erratic and ridiculous, going against the winds and seemingly ignoring the weather. You’ve been thinking of abandoning your watch on her, as your spy was clearly lying or being fed false information. You wish you still had your previous spy, but he was killed when Neophyte Redglare attempted to apprehend Mindfang a few decades ago. You briefly consider that Mindfang’s ships are being powered by some device designed by Expatriate Darkleer, then dismiss the idea – any device would have been noticed when they raided a port, and most technology isn’t that advanced yet anyway.

The second page confuses you further – it’s a report on a minor insurrection, where a blueblood apparently got in an argument with a seadweller (Dualscar was always so easily offended) and fled to Mindfang’s ships, which were in port at the time.

It’s only on the third page that you understand what this is. There’s a small picture, badly taken and blurred, but clear enough for your needs. A detailed report informs you that he is considered a psionic, unusually high in the hemospectrum for such an ability.

You receive your second major shock of the day fairly well, and manage not to fall over in surprise as you realize that your moirail has found and correctly identified John Egbert.


	10. Chapter 10

It’s when the Summoner decides to find out more about the Sufferer that everything goes to hell.

Because one does not simply find out more about the Sufferer, no, one has to travel across half the entire planet to find this one almost ancient greenblood who was apparently very close to him. One also must, apparently, take the entire squad of Cavalreapers. Because that isn’t a complete fucking disaster.

Your name is Dirk Strider, and you are not very happy.

You don’t especially enjoy the woods, and you also happen to think this is a terrible idea. Sure, this ‘Disciple’ might be fine with people coming to find out about the past, but you doubt she’ll be fine with an entire squad of Cavalreapers descending upon her secret hiding place.

But you’re not in charge, so you’re going to go be on watch.

Which is why you’re currently hiking your way up this ridiculously tall hill, about to climb a tree.

You glance around for a moment, then decide that it’s okay to cheat a little. You take off your jacket, letting your wings out through the back of your shirt, which has little slits in it to allow you to fly in case of emergencies.

You flap once, just letting them breathe a bit, then shoot up to the highest branch that looks like it can support your weight.

You grin a bit. You forgot how fun flying was.

Glancing down the hill, you can almost see the spot where you set up camp, a few miles from the cave where it’s said you can find the Disciple.

You’re not quite sure what could go wrong here, leaving your bad feeling about this without any ground to stand on – you’re officially out on a mission somewhere vaguely near here, so the Empire hopefully won’t be worrying about you, and the Summoner vetted all of the current members of the Lost Boys to make sure that none of them would rat him out. So really, the only thing that could go wrong here is…

You glance out the other direction.

Out to sea, where there’s a nice, sheltered cove.

It would be perfect for camping or hiding a group of ships in.

Except for the fact that there’s a small fleet in there already.

Flying Marquise Mindfang’s colors.

_Dammit._

 

This is the fastest you’ve ever run, back to your camp, cheating with your wings until you were two-thirds of the way there.

The group is barely ready – this place, these damned woods, give everyone an odd sense of comfort and safety.  Still, they’re prepared enough for fleeing or attacking. The true problem arises in the fact that when you’re halfway through arguing over whether to run or fight, the pirates attack.

You’re fighting a pair of rustbloods along with the troop’s second-in-command when you remember that the Summoner is elsewhere, at the Disciple’s cave.

“Go find him,” the second-in-command shouts to you, and you dart out of the battle and towards the caves.

You could have gotten there faster than almost any other troll, using your wings.

But someone followed you, so you have to resort to running through the trees, jumping over and dodging around fallen logs and branches, trying not to let your pursuer know that you know that he or she’s following you.

That all goes to hell when she or he stumbles a bit and breaks a branch with a resounding _crack._ He swears, then you swear, and you can almost see him realize that you know he’s there.

You dodge to the side, almost as a reflex, and a bullet whizzes through the air where you were half a moment ago, and then the chase is truly on.

Somehow you stumble and fight your way to the cave system, dodging bullets and slicing through bullets and, on a single unfortunate occasion, getting hit by bullets. You manage to land a blow or two of your own, though, darting through and around the trees in a game of suspecting prey and other suspecting prey.

He’s a formidable opponent – you can tell that your attacker is a he from the brief glimpses you’ve gotten of him – and you half-wonder who he is, but abandon that thought in favor of survival.

You glance backwards for a moment, then redirect your attention forward and there’s the entrance to the cave.

You catch a glimpse of the Summoner, the Disciple, and two other trolls, but only briefly, before you’re tackled halfway into the clearing, only just managing to get your sword up to your attacker’s throat as he presses a pistol to the underside of your jaw.

“What the f*ck? Strider? What–”

“English? What is going on here?”

“Pirates,” you say, at the same time your attacker says “Cavalreapers!” and then you both do a double take.

“Um,” you say.

“Oh,” says Jake English.

There’s quite a bit of awkward scrambling apart from each other and stammering half-thought-out apologies and questions before you’re all straightened out.

You both carefully look away from each other.

You can tell the Summoner is trying not to laugh, but now’s not a time for that. He can laugh all he wants later, but _not now._ “There’s a group of pirates attacking the camp.”

One of the other trolls – on a closer inspection, it’s Marquise Mindfang herself – groans. “Hotheaded idiots, I told them not to do anything without my signal, but _no,_ they had to go attack. I’ll make them stop.”

The fourth troll rolls her eyes. “I can take care of it,” she says, and with a green flash of light you’re all back at the camp, and everyone’s frozen in place.

“What did you do?” Mindfang asks tiredly. “And, more importantly, can you undo it?”

“Sure,” she says brightly, and after a few moments of mental searching you realize that this is Jade Harley. “I just slowed them all down until they were practically stopped, but I can undo it whenever I want. The real question is how to stop them fighting.”

“Put the pirates in one pile, cavalreapers in another, and weapons in a third,” the Summoner suggests, and Jade nods her approval. With a wave of her hand, she makes it so. There are quite a few thuds and groans as people fall and trip over each other as their movement is restored, along with wary glances at the other group, but nobody attacks, probably due to the presence of Mindfang and the Summoner.

Eventually, the whole story is sorted out – the pirates understandably freaked out at the squad of cavalreapers camping in what they thought was a safe place. They thought that your squad was here to kill the Disciple, and possibly Jade as well, and decided to make the first move.

With the look on Mindfang’s face, you wouldn’t want to be the troll who suggested the attack.

While the Summoner talks to Mindfang and the Disciple, you’re left with no choice but to awkwardly stand around with Jake and Jade.

“Um,” he says.

You make a few similar noncomittal noises back and forth, before Jade looks at you, rolls her eyes, then smacks you both on the head.

“You were in a relationship, it didn’t work out very well, the end,” she tells both of you, exasperated. “Can we _please_ move on in life?”

“… Sure,” you reply after one last awkward silence. “Most importantly – who else have you found so far?”

Jake grimaces a bit. “John’s back at the ship. Other than that, just us who’re here.”

You nod absentmindedly, storing that bit of information in your mind, probably to pass on to Rose. “I’ve found Rose, but she was it until today.”

Jade perks up in interest. “How’s she doing?”

You grimace a bit. “Politics. She’s one of the high ups now.”

“Typical,” Jade mutters, shaking her head. “But… no one else?”

“Unfortunately not. I think I might be starting to see a pattern, but not a full one. I may be able to figure out where Jane is, but it’s going to take a while. Do you have any way to communicate long-distance?”

Jade grins. “Yeah! I managed to put together these communicators. They charge in the sun, so–”

You hold up a hand. “One sec.”

The communicator is shockingly good for one built with virtually no other accessible technology. “Have you thought about rerouting the power source so that it’s direct, instead of feeding into a capacitor?”

She frowns. “Wouldn’t that just make it impossible to communicate without an immediate power source?”

You technobabble back and forth for a bit, with Jake looking more and more confused as time wears on, though you have to end your discussion when the Summoner calls out for everyone to start rebuilding camp before dawn.

“Thanks!” Jade tells you before she takes the pirates back to the ships. “My specialty was always nuclear technology, I was never really good with solar power.”

The minute they’re gone, the Summoner exhales deeply. “Well, that was exhausting.”

“Not to mention against regulation,” another member of your unit points out.

“Since when has that bothered us?” someone else calls out.

“I suppose I don’t have to remind anyone to not mention this?” the Summoner asks jokingly.

“Can we mention the part where Mindfang kept hitting on you?” you ask.

“Ugh, please don’t. That was so awkward…” he shakes his head. “Anyway, we should get some rest. Everyone, dismissed for the day. If any of you wake me up for anything less than the end of the world, I’ll give you back to the pirates!”

The group disperses to quiet chuckles and yawns, but before you enter your tent you notice the Summoner glancing speculatively out towards the sea.


	11. Chapter 11

**_Sweeps ago, but not many…_ **

“ _AIRSHIP CRASHING! This is Airship Hope, I repeat, we are crashing! Does anyone copy?”_

Mindfang glares at you over the radio. “We’re pirates, not a rescue crew!” she argues. “If anything, we should let them crash into the ocean, then retrieve anything valuable from the wreckage!”

You do your best puppy dog eyes. “Please?”

“No!”

“Pleeeeeeeease?”

“No!!!!!!!!!”

“Pleeeeeeeease???????? You’ve been saying that you wanted an airship, and it’s much less trouble if we fix it and get the crew to pilot it for us!”

“No, it’s not! It is, in fact, a ridiculous idea and I don’t see any way–”

You hear an explosion over the radio, and someone on the airship swears. Not the same troll who had been talking, though.

“ _Well, damn,_ ” says a new voice. “ _I don’t suppose anyone’s there? Everyone on this ship is dead except for me, and I really don’t want to go to the trouble of finding a new ship. Er… what’s the proper phrase? Does anyone copy? Something like that. This is Jake English, does anyone copy?_ ”

You stare at the radio for a few seconds.

“Jake English?” Mindfang asks you. “Wasn’t that the name of one of your friends?”

You nod, speechless.

She stares at the radio for a few more seconds, then sighs. “Fine. Go.”

You’re out of the cabin and off the ship in under a minute, flying to the coordinates where the transmission is coming from. Soon you can see the airship – it looks like the fuel tank exploded, but you can’t quite tell because most of the ship is on fire and losing altitude fast. You can see an emerald-winged troll hovering just outside of the cabin, watching the ship fall with a despairing look.

He looks up at you as you steady the ship, stopping it from crashing into the ocean and lifting it higher into the sky as you put out the flames.

“John?” he calls out to you. “Is that you?”

“Yeah!” you shout back. “Come on up here!”

He flies up to your altitude. “You heard our… my… distress signal?”

You nod. “What happened? I never expected to see you flying an airship! Or at all, really. Well, actually, I completely forgot that you might be here too.”

He shrugs. “Well, I’m not quite sure how it caught on fire, but one of the goshdarn fuckheads didn’t stop the fire from spreading to the engine, so that blew up and caught the fuel tank on fire. And I most certainly wasn’t expecting to find you here, either! If anything, I thought I would find Jane or Dirk or Roxy.” He pauses for a moment. “Say, I don’t suppose you’ve heard from any of them?”

“Well, I found Jade, but nobody else, until now. You haven’t?”

He shakes his head, staring at the ship. “No. And I have no clue how I’ll be able to fix my airship – I was travelling around looking for any sign of them, but I was starting to get a little short on money.”

“Well…” You really hope Spin doesn’t kill you. “Have you ever considered piracy?”

He gives you a speculative look. “Is this that rob from the rich, give to the poor gimmick?”

You shrug. “It’s more rob from the rich, give to the us.”

“Any room for an airship and its captain?”

“I think so. I just need to check with Spin first, but she’ll probably be fine with it – she’s been–”

“Spin? _Marquise Spinneret Mindfang?_ ”

You wince a little. “Um, yes?”

He stares at you. “That is so fucking badass.”

“Does that mean you’re in?” you ask hopefully.

“Certainly, if she doesn’t kill me on sight! I’ve heard horrifying rumors, you know.”

“Don’t worry,” you reply confidently. “Most of those aren’t true.”

“Good! My apologies, then… wait. Most?”

“Oh look at the time we should be getting back to the ship,” you say quickly. “Come on, I need to introduce you to her!”

Jake looks in the direction of the ships worriedly. “All right. Let’s do this.”

“Let’s make this happen?”

“Hell yes.”


	12. Chapter 12

You’ve been here for ten sweeps.

That’s roughly twenty years, perhaps a little over, but the point stands. You have been living as a troll for longer than you were living as a human, and something about that doesn’t bother you as much as it should. Sweeps ago, years ago, whatever you’ve taken to calling them, you still kept track of earth time – quietly celebrating your birthday, the day you would have turned seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty.

At twenty-one you stopped counting, because you couldn’t quite remember whether a year was three hundred sixty five days or three hundred fifty six days, and you were fairly sure that the days weren’t the same length anyways.

You told yourself that you stopped counting because you didn’t care any more, and after a while that became true. You assumed the role of the quiet ceruleanblood, unusual in that you were content to stay in your hive and bake and not kill too many people.

It all goes fairly well until about five sweeps in when somebody practically cuts you in half, revealing not only your wings but also your regenerative powers.

This probably wouldn’t be a bad thing for a normal troll, assuming one had those powers – you’re a relatively high caste but not too high so that psychic powers are unheard of, so you would be praised, not villified. But you want to stay out of the public eye. You can’t risk… Her… finding out about you. You don’t know if she remembers what happened during the game, but you can’t risk it.

So you pack up and sneak away under the cover of dusk, before everyone else wakes up, and find a new place to live.

You wander from town to town for a few perigees, hiding your color or your sign or, more often, both. But, as usual, you get tired of wandering after a while.

You end up at the hive of a blueblood in exile – the Expatriate Darkleer, he calls himself. When he gets company, which is rarely, you introduce yourself as his Maid, because why the hell not.

So it’s one day when you’re coming downstairs from your room to see if he fell asleep or he just worked through the day that you glance over at the calendar and realize it’s been exactly ten sweeps since you woke up here as a troll.

It doesn’t bother you.

Not at all.

You feel nothing.

This is demonstrated perfectly by the fact that when the Expatriate comes to find you after you missed your evening check-up on him, and you’re in the kitchen baking furiously. Definitely not crying. No tears here.

He gently rests a hand on your shoulder and you turn around, noticing him for the first time. “Is there anything that I can do to assist you?”

You let out a little sob and hug him tightly, crying into his strength-reducing suit.

You’re not moirails by any definition of the word except perhaps the loosest possible – he’s pale for someone probably long dead, and once you figured out the definition you set your pale sights on someone else, too. But you are the only ones available and willing to comfort each other, so that is what you do.

Your tears slowly dry, and after a few moments you step away and wipe your face. You weakly smile up at him and open your mouth to begin to explain why you’re upset. You’re probably going to say something along the lines of it’s the anniversary of your quadrants’ cullings, but you’re interrupted before you can get more than the first syllable or so out.

There’s a buzz emanating from Darkleer’s pocket, and he growls in frustration. “Someone is at the door.”

You take a deep breath, feeling the tears threaten to reemerge. “I’ll get it.”

Darkleer shakes his head. “I can manage.”

Once he’s left the room, you lean against a wall and try to further compose yourself, while at the same time you try to put together a relatively believable story. You’ve thought about them – Dirk, Jake, and Roxy – almost every day, and the pain of missing them hasn’t ceased, though it has dulled over the years. Sweeps.

The Expatriate coughs quietly to alert you to his presence. “It’s a lowblood,” he begins, but you frown in confusion because if it was just a lowblood, the Expatriate would have ignored him. “He is searching for someone matching your description.” He hesitates, and you see the look of worry on his face. “He says he was sent by the Overseer.”

“Ah.” This, on top of everything. You wonder why she’s looking for you – is it just her, or the Condesce as well? The Overseer is co-head of the subjugglators, along with her moirail, and she has been known to get what she wants by any means necessary. And almost any troll would want control over someone with your powers. Is it because of your powers and your wings, or because they’ve somehow found out about the game and what happened, you wonder suddenly. You wouldn’t be surprised if the Condesce remembered the game too. And if she found you… well, there’s a reason you’ve been staying out of the spotlight. “I’ll go… deal with it.”

Darkleer follows behind you as you approach the door, an ominous shadow behind you, promising retribution in case of danger.

You pause right before you open the door to put on what you think of as your heiress face.  You straighten your mouth into a strict line, slightly lower your eyebrows, and tilt your head up just a touch. Your back straightens even further and you adjust your hips to add more stability and strength to your stance. You have perfected this pose not only since you became a troll in one of the higher castes, but almost since you could walk. Being the heiress to a corporation in the middle stages of taking over the world tends to add some grandeur to your walk.

You calmly open the door, every inch the highblood heiress.

The troll standing outside is a rustblood, and you hate yourself for almost instinctively withdrawing a bit.

He opens his mouth to say something, sees the expression on your face, and swallows it. You watch for a few seconds as he seems to consider how to phrase whatever he wants to say.

“You’re Jane Crocker, right?” he finally asks, appearing to throw caution to the wind.

Normally, you would probably shut the door. Possibly threaten him, maybe go so far as to cull him, given that Darkleer is watching. But your interest is piqued. You haven’t told anyone your full name in sweeps.

“Who wants to know?” you say calmly. You could still stab him, after all.

The lowblood begins to reply, but the Expatriate looms behind you and he rethinks what he was about to say.

“You many not remember it, but you used to know both me and… the Overseer. We played a game together.”

A game, you think bizarrely, and for a few seconds you can’t quite place what he’s talking about, despite your recent reflection on the topic.

“Dave,” you whisper in shock, your eyes widening and highblood poise vanishing as you lunge forward and hug him, and he’s hugging you back and there are tears in your eyes for the second time today.

“Long time no see,” he whispers in your ear. “But you may want to let go of me, because your big scary blue friend is looking a little angry.”

You release Dave and turn to face Darkleer, attempting to prepare an explanation in your head.

“Jane, what is the meaning of this?”

“He and I grew up near each other,” you improvise. “I have not seen him in many sweeps, and I thought that he was dead.”

“That is no excuse for impropriety,” Darkleer scolds, “And with a rustblood, one hoof has proven to be a liar.”

“How has he proven to be a liar?” you ask calmly. You’ve dealt with enough casual casteism that you know how to keep your cool.

“He said that he was sent by the Overseer.”

“I was,” Dave interjects. “She said that I would probably find you here, and she was right. Don’t tell her I said that,” he adds on hastily. “She’d never let me hear the end of it.”

Rose? You subtly mouth to Dave, and he nods slightly.

Darkleer steps forward, his impressive height overshadowing Dave’s barely-out-of-adolescence stature. “And hoof are you to be conspiring with the Overseer?” he demands, as if this has personally offended him.

“Her auspistice,” Dave replies calmly, without so much as a tremor of fear of the highblood in front of him.

“With whom?” the Expatriate presses, determined to find a flaw in his story.

“A cerulean troll, nobody you would know,” Dave practically yawns.

You’re shocked at how nonchalant he’s being, but then again you never understood how the Striders kept their cool. Dave and Dirk were impossible to read, though in different ways. Dave filled up empty space with words and meaningless chatter, never stopping moving long enough for anyone to tell what he was actually thinking. Dirk was a lot more steady, but he had never learned how humans emoted properly and was able to use that to mask most of his thoughts.

And speaking of Dirk… “Have you found any of the others, aside from… the Overseer?” you ask suddenly, distracting Darkleer from Dave and Dave from Darkleer.

Dave shakes his head. “Not yet, though she may have found the others and not told me.”

You droop a little bit, but then straighten again. “I’m sorry, we’ve been terrible hosts. Please, come inside.” You subtly kick Darkleer in the ankle, stopping him from protesting the idea of a lowblood in his hive.

Dave looks at the Expatriate, then back to you. “I probably shouldn’t, I’m trying to track down some of the others and it’s harder than finding a needle in a haystack. It’s like the haystack spans the entire planet, and there are multiple needles but you’re not quite sure whether any of them are actually there, and there are also fake needles that will try to kill you if you mess up.”

You nod in understanding. “Is… is there any way for me to contact you or her?”

He grimaces. “No reliable way yet. If it’s urgent, send a message to her with her real name on it. Don’t use your real name, just in case. I’ll check in every perigee or so, if that’s all right?”

You nod. “Where are you going next?”

He shrugs. “She says she might have a lead on John, but she wants to double check due to extreme danger or something silly like that. She also wants me to check up on this greenblood, the Disciple or something, so–”

“The Disciple?!”

You both turn to face Darkleer, whose face has gone pale. “Yeah?” Dave says, as thrown by this as you are.

“I… excuse me, ah… do not depart yet.” He pauses, anger replaced by uncertainty. “I need to… retrieve something.”

He enters the hive and you follow, after telling Dave to wait there.

“What is it?” you ask. “Who is this Disciple – oh. It’s her, isn’t it? The revolutionary you refused to kill?”

“Yes,” he replies curtly, his hands trembling as he attempts to write something. “I… damn it!”

His pen breaks. This is the first time you have heard him come anywhere near swearing.

“Here.” You fetch one of the pens designed specifically to withstand his strength. “What are you going to say?”

He stares at the blank paper for a moment. “I have absolutely no idea,” he finally admits. “The concept that she would read something by my hand… this is ridiculous, she would not accept it. And she would not care to be my… that is… it would be completely impossible, I should just…”

“Write what you can,” you interrupt his train of self-deprecation. “Apologize for what happened, say that you wish you had done something sooner. Say that you hope she’s doing well. Finish it however you like.”

He stares at the paper for a few long seconds, then begins to write.

You return to Dave.

“What was that all about?” he asks. “Big Blue completely flipped.”

“The Expatriate Darkleer,” you reply, stressing ‘Big Blue’s’ name, “Was involved with the Empire during…” you lower your voice slightly, just in case “… during the time of the Sufferer. He was instructed to execute the Disciple, one of the Sufferer’s followers. He was unable to, due to pale feelings, allowing her to escape. He was then exiled to live here, and hasn’t heard of her since.”

As you finish your explanation, Darkleer returns, letter cleanly folded inside an envelope.

“Convey this to the Disciple, if you see her,” he orders Dave. “If you do not, burn it.”

Dave rolls his eyes, but nods. “Sure.”

You hug him one more time, still not quite believing that he’s real. “Make sure you come by every perigee,” you remind him. “I’ll try to get Darkleer to put together some sort of long-distance communicator for emergencies.”

“Cool,” Dave says. “And I won’t forget, how forgetful do you think I am?”

You laugh a bit. “Pretty darn forgetful, Mister Strider. I’ll see you then.”

“Till then,” he agrees, and vanishes in a flash of red light.

You stare at the spot where he was for a minute, then go inside and begin to bake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the month-long break, I was busy failing to do NaNoWriMo. The schedule should be picking up, now that I don't have that weighing me down, though it's not going to be regular by any means.  
> I'm considering wrapping this story up sooner than I thought I would and turning the 'second part' into a sequel. Any preferences?


	13. Chapter 13

You don’t know what to do.

This is a terrifying thought; you have always prided yourself on your knowledge of the best course of action, and as of late your life and secrets have become dependent on it.

Your… you don’t know what to classify him as. He’s not a quadrant, you think – you have a moirail, and possibly a matesprit, as well as what you think you’ve identified as an auspistice. Vriska had always annoyed you, but she was no kismesis and Dave had helped mediate.

Your John is in danger.

He is with Mindfang.

Mindfang.

You had considered the thought that you believed that he was smarter than that, but dismissed it. It was never a good idea to bet on John being the wisest.

And on reflection, you had never shown him the journals that you had acquired from Terezi, who had in turn gotten them from Vriska.

John is with Mindfang, but Mindfang is going to die soon.

You have to do something.

You have to…

…

You feel your moirail’s hands on your shoulders, lightly massaging the stress out.

You take a deep breath.

Mindfang is not stupid.

She also knows that this is coming.

As much as you dislike Vriska, you do admit that most of that is because you are too similar. Mindfang is almost closer to Vriska than she ever was to Aranea; therefore, she will have a plan. If she cares for John at all, he will be fine.

The problem, of course, being the ‘if she cares for John at all’ bit.

She will find any spies you send who are lower than her own caste, and execute or torture any higher. You could have blackmailed Dualscar into asking, but your moirail killed him a sweep or two ago, and he probably would have just fucked up anyway.

There’s a knock on the window.

You headdesk, your moirail’s hands falling away from your shoulders.

“Dave,” you say, gritting your teeth. “What part of ‘subtle’ and ‘stealthy’ are you missing?”

“Hey, I am the most subtle and sneaky person around,” he retorts. “I didn’t get seen by anyone. I literally just time travelled to before this place was even around, then came forwards. It’s that simple to avoid your guards.”

You sigh. “What if someone else had been in the room?”

“Then I would have left before anyone saw me,” He replies patiently. “It is literally that simple, Lalonde.” He sits down on one of your fancy chairs and props his feet up on another fancy chair, posing as callously irreverent but still not getting dirt on anything.

You can tell that your moirail is finding this hilarious.

“Besides, I found Jane,” he continues after a second.

You sit up straight. “You found her?”

He raises one dark eyebrow. “No,” he deadpans. “That’s why I said I found her.”

You roll your eyes. “With Darkleer, or elsewhere?”

Kurloz tenses minorly at the mention of the Expatriate. You reach over to place one of your hands on top of his.

“With Darkleer,” Dave clarifies. “She–” He breaks off when you hear a knock on the door.

“Forwards five minutes,” you order him. “I’ll try to make this short.”

He nods and vanishes.

You walk imperiously towards the door.

It’s a messenger, a tealblood, with a letter for you. He bows, handing you the letter, then retreats.

It has your name on it.

You’re in the process of reading through it when Dave reappears.

“It was just someone delivering a letter,” you explain absentmindedly.

“From who?”

“Whom.”

He glances at you through those shades of his. “From who?”

You consider for a moment, then shrug. “Dirk,” you tell him.

He freezes in place, even though he hadn’t been moving. He’s like some sort of bird or something, you muse. One of those ones that can blend in with the environment so well than when they’re threatened, they can just not move, and be invisible.

“So,” he says after a minute. “Uh. Well. That’s… good to know?”

“And apparently he’s found Jake and Jade, as well as confirming John’s location,” you continue. You’re not going to say where he found Jade. You are well aware of your moirail’s loyalties, and you don’t want to risk the Disciple. “So we know where you, Jade, John, Dirk, Jane, Jake and I are.”

“So we’re just missing Roxy,” Dave finishes.

Well, with your theory, she should be…

Oh.

Oh dear.

Kurloz is behind you in an instant as he notices your panic. “I’m all right,” you try to assure him, and completely fail.

“What is it?” Dave asks, worried behind his stoic mask.

“Roxy,” you breathe quietly. “We… Oh no, we’re each finding trolls who match our color…”

Your moirail puts his arms around you, and you lean back into his giant embrace.

“You found the Handmaid, who was maroon. Kurloz is purple, like me. John is with Mindfang, who’s cerulean, Jane is with Darkleer, blue…”

Dave frowns a bit, confused. “Okay, so Roxy’s pink, so she…” he trails off. “Oh,” he says, more quietly.

You can think and plan and puzzle the rest of this out later. You don’t care any more. Roxy is dead, or will be dead, and there may not be anything you can do about it.

Right now, you decide, you’re just going to take a break from the endless scheming and take a minute to cry.

 


	14. Chapter 14

You wonder what’s going to happen to John when you die.

You’ve made preparations for nearly everything else – the cueball and your journal are already with Darkleer, ready to be discovered by your descendant in several hundred sweeps. You’ve left various treasure maps to caches of loot. Your various inferiors will fight over and eventually destroy the fleet. None of your other possessions matter much.

John and Jake will probably go live with Jade for a while – you know that she’d been feeling lonely since the Disciple had passed away a few sweeps ago, and she could only travel with your fleet for so long, so after a while she went back to the Disciple’s cave.

Of course, you still have a few perigees before it’s your time. About half a sweep.

That’s enough time to get quite a bit done.

But first you need to visit the Expatriate one last time.

His hive is the same as always, at least on the outside – cold and dark, almost already identical to the ruin that it will become.

The inside, however, is a little different this time.

A troll you don’t recognize answers the door after you pound on it for a few minutes. She’s cerulean blooded, like you, but other than that you two are almost as different as possible. She’s short where you’re tall, soft where you’re hard from sweeps of piracy.

“Oh, you must be Mindfang,” she says. “Please, come inside – if I’d known you were coming I would have baked something, but… oh, I’m very sorry, I haven’t introduced myself yet. I’m Jane.”

You sit in the chair she offers you. “I’m afraid it’s rather urgent that I speak to the Expatriate.”

“Of course,” she nods. “He’s working, but I think I can interrupt him for this.”

She walks downstairs, leaving you alone – either she doesn’t know of your reputation, or she feels confident in the fact that you won’t disturb Darkleer’s hive too much.

Well, the second is true, at least.

You tip the chair on two legs, purposefully ignoring every lesson your lusus taught you, and examine the hive. It’s a lot cleaner than it was the last time you visited – Jane must have either cleaned up or pestered Darkleer into being more neat. Or both.

A doorbell rings.

When you arrived, you had ignored the doorbell on purpose. Purposefully. Of course.

You had been wondering how long it would take John to get worried and follow you – Jake wouldn’t, you and he had never gotten very close, but he might follow John.

It’s a little sooner than you thought he would arrive here, though.

When Jane doesn’t reappear after the doorbell rings a third time, you get up and answer it.

Instead of John, there’s an unfamiliar maroonblood outside and you blink in surprise.

“You’re not Jane,” He says.

You consider a bit and decide that you can’t pass up the opportunity for sarcasm. “Really,” you reply. “I hadn’t noticed.”

He stares at you for a moment and shrugs. “Who the hell are you, then?”

You frown at him. “Who the hell are you?”

“I asked first.”

“Does it look like I care?”

He appears to consider this for a moment, then shrugs again. He examines you once more. “You’re Mindfang.”

You stare at him, unwilling to reply until he’s answered you.

He stares back, equally deadpan.

This is where Jane finds you a few minutes later. She looks between the two of you in your staring contest, rolls her eyes, and forcibly drags both of you back to the table that you were seated at.

“Okay,” she says as soon as she’s managed to somehow force both of you into your seats. “Dave, this is Marquise Mindfang. Marquise, this is Dave, a friend of mine.”

“Like I care – wait.” You stare at him for a few seconds, then look back to Jane. “Dave. And Jane.” This cannot be happening to you.

Jane shrugs, clearly a little uncomfortable, but Dave sits up in his chair and leans forward a bit. “What about it?” Jane asks. “I know that our names are a little odd, but…”

You shake your head. “Dave.” You look through his obscuring shades, and you can almost see that shade of red that you recognize from so many tens of sweeps ago. “Strider.”

“Hell fucking yes.” You can almost see the faintest signs as of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

“And…” you search your memory. Jake had mentioned her a few times. “Jane… Crocker?”

Jane nods mutely.

You smirk and tilt your chair up again.

The three of you sit in silence for a bit, as Jane tries to figure out how you know and Dave and you engage in another silent contest.

“Well?” Dave says after a few minutes. “Aren’t you going to arrogantly try to shock me by telling me how John is, thinking that I don’t know that John is with you?”

“Oh, I was waiting for you to ask and arrogantly try to shock me by assuming that I don’t know that you know that John is with me.” You pause for a few seconds. “Jake and Jade are doing fine, too.”

You’re rewarded with him fairly successfully trying to suppress a reaction, for which you silently award yourself one point on the Deadpan Wiseassometer.

“What?!” Oh, right, Jane’s there, too.

You and Dave begin to talk at the same time and stop to glare at each other again until Jane whacks the both of you lightly with her spoon to get your attention.

You roll your eyes. “It’s actually a fairly long tale, but I’ll give you the basics. John has been travelling with me for quite a few sweeps now. We met Jade a while in – she had been staying with an old greenblood called the Disciple until recently – and Jake showed up when his airship crashed near my fleet.”

Jane sighs a bit. “That is so disappointingly typical of him.”

“It really is, isn’t it,” you agree. “There was this time when some of my idiots accidentally attacked a squad of cavalreapers while I was busy elsewhere, and he saw fit to tell me what was going on by tackling his cavalreaper ex-matesprit into the clearing where I was.”

Dave snickers a bit and Jane grins, but then pauses. “Wait,” she says. “Ex-matesprit… what would he be… brownblood? Pointy sunglasses–”

“–Shades–”

“–shades, possibly a katana? Dirk?”

“Yes. Is he another one of your… group? This is beginning to get ridiculous. How many of you are there?”

“Eight.” Jane pauses. “Though if we’re going to count–”

“No,” Dave interrupts. “They haven’t even been hatched or whatever yet.”

“So there are eight of us.” Jane finishes.

John, Jade, Jake, Jane, Dave, Dirk… “Who are the other two?”

They exchange a look.

“I’m going to die in a few perigees,” you sigh. “And I could always find out through less reliable sources. You may as well just tell me.”

“You’re going to die?” Oh, good, Dave does dislike you back. You were starting to get a little worried about that.

You shrug. “I have a little advantage in predicting the future.”

“Oh jegus, don’t tell me it’s that fucking magic cueball,” Dave grumbles. “That thing was less reliable than a blind meteorologist on acid.”

“It is, actually, ‘that fucking magic cueball,’” you reply amusedly. “Thankfully, I’m not a complete idiot and can therefore spend a while working the loopholes out of my questions. Now, I believe you were going to tell me about the other two of your group?”

“Rose first,”  Jane decides. “Dave?”

Dave shrugs. “Rose – she’s purple – hasn’t been talking to us very much, she’s pretty busy maintaining a ‘high-and-mighty-ruthless-stuck-up-highblood’ image. She’s a little famous, I guess. You’d probably know her as the Overseer,” he adds, and you know that you didn’t manage to fully contain the shock on your face, so you grudgingly award Dave a point on the Deadpan Wiseassometer. “I’m sort of on-and-off auspisticizing for her and another troll, though we… haven’t heard from that troll in a while, so who even knows.”

You nod and refocus your attention on Jane, who you suspect will tell you information about the mysterious eighth troll.

She hesitates, then looks down. “We haven’t found Roxy yet,” she says quietly. “But, based on previous trends–”

“Previous trends?” you interrupt.

“We have mostly all made contact with, at some point, a troll whose color is similar to our previous colors,” she explains quietly. “Roxy’s color was pink.”

Ah.

Well.

Darkleer coughs quietly, interrupting your moment of silence and alerting you to his presence.

You stand and turn to face him, your skirts and hair swishing. “Darkleer.”

“Mindfang. You need something?” he peers at you. “Have you broken your arm again? It appears to be fully functional.”

You shake your head. “No. I simply need to temporarily retrieve some of my personal effects.”

“They are in a chest in the basement – I shall go retrieve them. Wait here.” He glances at Jane. “Be careful around her.”

You scoff. “Like I would misbehave.”

“Misbehaving is all you do,” Dave counters you. “Misbehaving is actually, literally your job description. On the file that the government has on you, it lists your personality traits, and misbehaving is second on the list.”

“What’s the first?” you inquire, somehow both amused and frustrated by his extended metaphors.

“Psychopathy,” he replies promptly. “hoarding is fourth, right after ‘being a complete maniac.’”

Darkleer looks at the two of you, sighs, and goes downstairs to fetch your things.

You can tell that this is going to be a fun visit.

 


	15. Chapter 15

Something is going to happen soon.

You don’t know what, but from the looks that she’s been giving you, it’s not good.

Your new matesprit has always been rather disapproving of your more radical ideas – she agrees that something needs to change, but says that you’re going about it all wrong.

She had told you her ideas, but those just… they would take too long, change too little.

And Mindfang may be good at waiting those things out, but you’re not. She’ll still have a decade or five left to live after your death, but you need to try to change things now, before it’s too late.

But you can feel her tension, every time you mention or even think about the revolution that you’re planning – she stays mostly out of your mind, but you know that she can’t help hearing when you think too loudly.

But that’s not the point right now.

Well, it sort of is.

But not really.

Anyways.

You approach a group of young trainees with practice swords, all staring up at their instructor.

“Hey, Strider!” you call out. “I need to talk to you. Finish up your lesson.”

He nods at you, then turns back to the trainees to give them some final tips before heading over to where you are.

“Are we breaking up?” he deadpans. “’Cause I thought we really had some chemistry there.”

You ignore him in the way that you’ve perfected over the sweeps. “This way.” Leading him towards the main command tent, you can’t help but wonder what he’s going to think of this mission.

You wince a little and decide to try and think about happier things.

“So,” he says, once you and he have taken your respective seats. “What’s this about?”

Are you letting me fight for the rebellion? You can hear his unspoken question. You’ve kept him out of the fighting so far, using the excuse that he’s the best at training others in combat. Not that there have been many full-out battles, but the number of skirmishes, mostly with cavalreapers and legislacerators and – on one occasion – a few subjugglators, has been rising. You won’t be surprised if there’s a full-out battle soon.

Dirk will want to take part in that battle.

You have very good reasons as to why he should not do so.

Now you just have to think up some excuses and explanations.

You take a deep breath. “Strider…”

He waits patiently for you to continue, his face in its usual blank expression.

“You’re not going to like this,” you warn him, and you can almost see a flicker of worry cross his face for a split second. “I need you to go find someone. I need you to give them a message.” You can tell that he’s wondering what the catch is. Well, here it comes. “And then I need you to stay with them.”

He stares at you for a minute or two, and you can almost see the gears turning in his mind. “You mean, I need to stay with – whoever I find, where they are, and not bring them back here?”

You nod.

“Miss helping fight with the rebellion.”

You hesitate, then nod again.

“Why?” he stands in one fluid motion, fists clenched in the most anger you’ve ever seen him openly emote.

You don’t reply with words. Instead, you walk over to your desk and retrieve a file. “This is the troll you’ll be guarding,” you explain quietly as you hand it to him. “And you’ll be guarding her because she’s going to be our next leader.”

He stares at the folder for a few minutes, then falls back into his seat.

“Fine,” he says quietly. “Permission to be dismissed?”

“Permission granted, private Strider. Prepare to leave as soon as possible.”

He nods and exits the command tent.

You exhale in relief. That had gone smoother than you could have ever hoped. He hadn’t even drawn his sword.

Your radio beeps – incoming transmission.

You barely bother to wonder how she could have known you were done talking to him. She’s terrifying like that, but you’ve learned to just accept it.

“You got him to stay away from the fighting?” Despite the static and other distortions of the radio, her otherwise faceless voice is clearly aristocratic, and therefore highblooded.

“Yeah,” you reply into the microphone. “He’s not going to be anywhere near any of the battles.”

“Good,” she says, and ends her transmission.

You stare at the radio for a few moments, then decide it would probably be a bad idea to wonder whether she was for your rebellion, or against it. Also whether she was trying to help Strider or make him vulnerable.

You really, really hope it’s the former.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next update might take a while. We're reaching the last arc or two of the story before the epilogue of this first story, and I want to post those ones close together. I also have finals next week, and who knows how much writing I'll be able to motivate myself to do over winter break.  
> I'm going to need a title for this series - the next one will be titled something along the lines of "Angular Velocity, in revolutions per minute" or something equally ridiculously pretentious. Any ideas?


	16. Crossroads, part 1 of 4

You actually have no clue how Dirk managed to track you down, when even the best in the Empire had previously failed.

You have this funny feeling that Jake had something to do with it, though.

Somebody needs to teach both him and John how to be more subtle.

However he found your fleet, his request had been fairly simple, though not something that you would have anticipated. After all, the Expatriate is famous for his casteism.

You… also don’t actually know why Dirk wants to go to his hive, much to your chagrin. You had promised John not to intentionally read the minds of any of his little group except when necessary, and you decided that John wouldn’t judge your insatiable curiosity as ‘necessary.’

You did hear bits and pieces of Dirk’s thoughts, though. And the one time that you had been unable to resist the urge to probe deeper, it was…

Interesting, to say the least.

Almost as if there were multiple versions of himself in his head, each running their own little independent plan.

From what you’ve been able to get from John, Jake, and Jade about the Game that they played, this is typical for Dirk, though usually more metaphorically so.

Either way, you hadn’t been able to discover his intentions.

Slightly pettily, you had refrained from mentioning the presence of Dave and Jane.

You can’t wait to see the look on Dave’s face.

“So, this is Darkleer’s hive?” Dirk stares up at the imposing manor impassively. “Hm.”

You ignore his inscrutable tone, as you’ve become used to doing, and stride up towards the door, though you pause before ringing the doorbell. “What are you waiting for?” you call back to Dirk, who hasn’t moved. “You want to do this or not?”

He shrugs and ambles up to the door with you. “That symbol up there just… reminds me of a friend who I haven’t seen in a while.”

Must have been a good friend, given that his facade is fracturing slightly.

You ring the doorbell and wait until you can sense Darkleer coming to answer it that you nonchalantly comment “Roxy, right?”

Dirk _freezes_ in place, staring at you for a few seconds, and is just opening his mouth to question you when the door opens and Darkleer appears.

“What do you want this time, Mindfang?” he demands tiredly.

You shrug. “Wanted to stop by with an old acquaintance and catch up on the times? Wanted to check up on my things again? Just wanted to annoy you?” You gesture towards Dirk casually. “I brought a friend.”

“I’d hardly call you a friend,” Dirk retorts, but that’s all he has time for because the Expatriate has noticed him and is glowering with his full highblood stature.

Dirk holds up remarkably well under Darkleer’s glare.

“I need to talk to Jane.”

Well.

You hadn’t known that he had known that she was here.

On reflection, that _would_ explain why he wanted to come here.

The Expatriate holds his glower for a few more seconds, then turns around and beckons you both inside.

Dave and Jane had mentioned something about patterns for finding out where their group were, and Dirk seemed like the type to pick up on those. Oh, good, that meant Dave would still be a surprise.

Darkleer glances towards the stairs to higher floors, presumably where Jane is. “I shall go–”

“CROCKER!” you shout up the stairs. “COME ON, YOU’VE GOT COMPANY!”

You can practically feel her sigh, though her mind is mostly impenetrable to you. “Like you’re fit to be called company,” she calls back as she descends. “I would be surprised if you didn’t break everything on purpose every time you – Dirk!”

A cerulean and cyan blur moves past you at speeds you hadn’t thought possible for trolls to move at, and you hear a sound that sounds suspiciously like Dirk being tackled to the floor. You turn around to see that Dirk has indeed been tackled to the floor, though both he and Jane are picking themselves up. They exchange the general greetings that you’ve become used to, now having witnessed three or four of these reunions, and Darkleer declares that he has a project to work on so that the three of you can move to the kitchen and you can get some coffee.

(Jane still won’t let you use any cooking tools in her kitchen. Ridiculous – you’ve only broken a few things! A few dozen things. Whatever.)

“How did you know I was here?” Jane finally asks.

Dirk shrugs. “Patterns. I was with the Summoner, Jade ended up with the Disciple, Rose found the Highblood, Jake made his way to Mindfang, who had the Dolorosa.”

You carefully keep a calm façade. You hadn’t thought that he’d known about her.

“Honestly, I would have guessed that you would have ended up with Mindfang, but John did. That just left the Expatriate,” he finishes, gesturing towards Darkleer.

Jane nods. “I… don’t suppose you’ve found Roxy?” she asks quietly.

Dirk’s shoulders sag a bit and he looks downwards. “I was hoping that you had,” he replies. “… what about Dave?”

Jane brightens visibly. “Yes, he drops by every so often.”

Well, so much for surprising Dirk.

The look on Dave’s face will be great, though.

“Good. That’s… practically everyone, right?”

“Yes, except…” Jane pauses for a moment. “I’m sorry, it just occurred to me… not that I don’t want you here, I’m delighted that you’re here, but why _are_ you here? Did something happen, with the… Summoner?”

You glance over at Dirk, wondering how he’ll answer this. You managed to figure out that the Summoner had sent him out on a mission, but you had no clue what the mission was.

Dirk looks like he spends a few moments puzzling out what exactly he’s going to say, then sighs infinitesimally. “The Summoner is a great general, but he knows that he wouldn’t make a very good leader for anything that wasn’t an army. He sent me out to find and protect one troll who he believes will make a great leader if we win the war. I don’t know how he found out about that troll’s existence, but he thinks – and I agree – that she’d be a perfect replacement for Fish Hitler.”

Jane listens to his story, but appears taken a bit aback by the lack of identification at the end. “That sounds fantastic. Who is she?”

Dirk stares at her for a few seconds.

She stares back, then blinks in shock. “You’ve got to be joking.”

He shrugs. “For once, entirely, one-hundred-percent serious.”

Jane shakes her head in denial. “That’s completely ludicrous! I don’t have nearly enough training, or experience, or leadership skills! _You_ were the leader during the game!”

Dirk scoffs. “Please, I was a horrible leader. Jake tried; he was also a horrible leader. Roxy tried, and that worked out a bit, but she’s a void player, and she’s better at staying in the shadows. You didn’t get much of a chance to try. We were all trying to be the leader, and all failing, because nobody agreed. They’d accept you now, though.”

She laughs, a little shakily. “I… I’m not sure I’d be ready to lead the whole empire, though!”

He smiles a bit. “You’ll be ready when it’s time.”

(This is the most emotion you’ve ever seen from him and it’s starting to freak you out just a tiny bit.)

Jane smiles back weakly, but then pauses and glances over at you. “Well, do we know when…” she leaves the question open-ended, but you know what she’s asking. _Do we know when the rebellion will fail? Do we know how long it will be before the next one will succeed?_

Dirk glances at you, too. You stare steadily back, engaging in a different sort of staring contest than you usually have with Dave.

“The Summoner is going to kill me in just under a perigee,” you answer calmly. “After that, I’d estimate that the rebellion has no longer than half a sweep or so.”

He holds eye contact for another few moments, then nods. “Our timescale goes on for… quite a while past that.”

You think back to one of the questions that you had asked your cueball. _How long until their troll friends arrive?_ “Two and a half centuries.”

His only response is to raise his eyebrows slightly. “We have quite a wait, then.”

You shrug. “From some perspectives.”

“Some perspectives?”

Dirk really needs to stop asking these clarifying questions, it’s ruining your mysterious statements. “Some perspectives. Not others, though…” You trail off, sensing the approach of a few familiar minds. This should be interesting.

There’s the familiar _bzzz_ of Dave ringing the doorbell.

“Oh, I’ll go–” Jane begins, but you’re closer.

You reach over and yank the door open. Unfortunately, Dave hadn’t been leaning on it.

He raises one unimpressed eyebrow. “Mindfang.”

You leave the door open and walk back to the group.

Dave sighs, shakes his head, and follows you.

You can’t wait until he sees Dirk.

Dirk sees him before he sees Dirk, and you’re reminded of when you mentioned Roxy. Dirk stands completely still for a moment, shocked into nonaction, then glances at you and raises a single eyebrow.

Dave’s reaction is a lot more hilarious.

He doesn’t fall down, not quite, but he definitely misses a few steps. He stares at Dirk for a few seconds, then turns to glare at you.

“You did that on purpose,” he accuses.

“Of course I did,” you retort. “It was _hilarious_.”

“You’d better watch your back,” he threatens.

“For what, banana cream pies?” you ask, then deftly sidestep the banana cream pie that a future Dave throws at you.

In the background, Dirk is asking Jane whether you two are always like this.

“I was thinking more for whoever it was who followed you here,” he explains.

“Oh, that? I thought it was someone trying to kill _you._ ” You know that this is a blatant lie. “I would laugh if you died,” you add after a beat.

There’s a cough at the still-open door. “Actually it’s just me,” John interjects.

There’s a moment or two of silence as everyone stares at him.

“What?” he demands. “I was curious where she kept disappearing to.”

There’s a crash somewhere behind him.

He sighs. “And Jake followed me,” he admitted.

“What is this, a party?” Dirk deadpans.

“I’ll go get the refreshments,” Jane sighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next set of chapters will be published over the course of the next week or so, as they follow each other rather closely chronologically.


	17. Crossroads, part 2 of 4

“Well,” you say awkwardly.

“Yeah,” Jane replies, just as awkward.

John walks over to the two of you. “Spin seems convinced that Dirk is convinced that Jane is going to take over the world. Do you guys know what’s up with that?”

This is news to you!

Jane facepalms. “Dirk and I still have some things to talk about,” she explains. “And… Mindfang also tends to blow things out of proportion just for kicks.”

John nods. “Oh, yeah, I know that, about Mindfang at least,” he explains. “It’s just part of the time she’ll understate something, because we’ll be expecting her to overstate it, and basicaly it’s best just to check no matter what.”

“Are you giving all my secrets away?” Mindfang calls from across the room.

“Most of them!” John calls back.

Jane and John begin swapping stories of Mindfang telling tall tales, so you decide to wander off for a bit. Jade would tell you that you’re avoiding your past romantic awkwardness by not talking to Jane, but honestly, you don’t care.

“So,” Dave says.

You jump a little bit and almost fall over, then mutter something rude about sneaky Striders.

“ _Why_ do you and Dirk always do that?” you demand.

“Because you’re never expecting it,” Dave says. “And it’s hilarious.”

You roll your eyes. “Did you want something?”

Dave shrugs. “Not really. Mindfang is gossiping with Dirk about John and you, John and Jane are gossiping about Mindfang and me, and Darkleer is being antisocial as usual.”

The prospect that Mindfang is gossiping about you is rather worrying, but you decide not to worry about it.

You lean against the wall, trying to mimic Dave and probably failing miserably.

The two of you stand there in companionable silence for a bit, observing the others. You’ve learned a lot over the sweeps you’ve spent as a troll. Including how to be quiet.

“What have you been doing, then?” Well, how to be quiet up to a certain point.

Dave glances over at you behind his shades. They’re so much more all-encompassing than Dirk’s, yet somehow also more revealing. Dirk’s shades are precise, sharp, well-defined. Dave’s are rounder, smoother, more laid back. “Whatcha mean?”

You shrug. “Over the heaven knows how many sweeps you’ve been here. What have you been doing?”

Dave spends a minute in silence, staring out at the others, his expression flat. “Traveling around, mostly,” he says. “Exploring around, getting into trouble, getting into more trouble, getting out of trouble…”

“Sounds like a jolly good time.”

He regards you gravely for a moment. “You serious with that lingo?”

“What?”

“Nothing.” he shakes his head, seemingly bemused. “What about you? Spending your time going around being all pirate-y?”

You brighten. “Not originally. I captain airships, you see.”

“For real?”

“Yes, for real! That’s actually how John found me. My ship, er, exploded a bit, and it was crashing near enough to Mindfang’s ships that they picked up the distress signal. John went to investigate, and found me, and offered me a job with the fleet, and I’ve been there since then! It really is quite a bit of fun, though to be honest this new venture of Mindfang’s has been sounding extremely exciting.”

“New venture?” Dave asks.

You nod. “This whole rebellion, er, thing.”

Dave pales a bit. “... ‘scuse me for a second,” he says, then he stomps over to Mindfang and drags her away from Dirk, towards the kitchen, where they’ll be able to talk semi-privately.

“Don’t break anything,” Jane tells them absentmindedly, but neither Dave nor Mindfang acknowledge her.

Dirk walks over to you once they’re out of sight. “Do you know what that was about?”

You shake your head. “I was just talking about being a pirate sort of, and then the rebellion, and he just went and dragged her off!” You are mildly indignant.

“Huh.” Dirk glances at the kitchen. The door to it is closed - Mindfang had yanked it shut behind her - but it is still, after all, a simple door. “... are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Well,” you say, after spending a minute calibrating your Strider-level witty riposte abilities, “If you’re thinking that we should eavesdrop on them, then probably.”

“Of course. Do you want keyhole or bottom of the door?”

You consider for a moment. Bottom of the door has better sound, but keyhole is more dramatic.

“Keyhole,” you decide eventually. You are dedicated to your sense of style.

Dirk shrugs. “Works for me.”

The two of you glance over at John and Jane, who are steadfastly ignoring you, then walk over to the door as quietly as you can and lean in.


	18. Crossroads, part 3 of 4

She can’t do this to you, you think wildly. She just… can’t.

“Are you just going to let it happen?” you demand once the two of you are alone inside the kitchen.

She stares at you for a moment, then sighs and leans against the wall. “Dave–”

“Don’t you just ‘Dave’ me!” you whisper-shout, not even making much of an effort to mimic her when you quote her. “How long do you have.”

She doesn’t reply.

“Mindfang… Spin… ugh.” you shake your head. It’s rare that you lose your cool, but when you do, you do it dramatically. “Aranea. How. Long. Do. You. Have?”

She glares at you point-blank, her teeth bared. She knows how you know her true name, or at least she does if she’s not a complete idiot. And there’s no way she can’t reply now, not with a challenge this obvious.

“Probably about a week,” she says finally.

You swear softly and lean against the wall.

A week.

Your… you don’t even know what she is to you. You haven’t spent enough time in one place to really pick up all the nuances of troll culture, and you never knew your own feelings very well to begin with.

She’s going to die.

In about a week.

“Change it,” you say suddenly. “Change the future.”

“Have you gone completely insane?” she snipes. “You know it doesn’t work like that.”

“There are ways around fate,” you argue. “Pulling behind-the-scenes tricks, fucking around with identities–”

“The cueball’s never worked like that,” she reminds you. “Our _friend_ up there can see anything that isn’t voided out, and its powers come from him. He - and it - would know.”

There’s an idea there, one you can’t quite get to, but now’s not the time for that.

You hate her, you suddenly realize. You hate how she’s completely impossible all of the time, how she tries her hardest to trip you up, to be the top dog, how she never seems to think anything is good enough, how she just sits back and accepts her fate–

Oh.

You hate her.

And then she’s right in front of you because that goddamn _bitch_ has been reading your mind this whole time.

You kiss her.

Or maybe she kisses you, whatever, it _doesn’t fucking matter._ Either way, you end up kissing each other, and this is quite possibly the best kiss you’ve ever had and you hate her even more for it, because she’s going to just show you _this_ and then take it away from you. There are teeth involved, not just tongues, and there’s groping and scratching and this is _glorious_.

“Dirk ‘n Jake ‘re listening in,” she mumbles, pulling away slightly. Her upper lip is a little bloody and there’s a smear of maroon on her chin.

“So?”

“So,” she leans in even closer, hooking a leg around you and yanking you around so that you’re pressed up against the table, almost sitting on it. The moment you realize that you’re way too out of your depth is when you’re too distracted staring at her face to notice her pinning your wrists behind you. “I’m going to give them something to listen to.”


	19. Crossroads, part 4 of 4

There’s a thump across the room.

Jane stops explaining the role of Crockercorp in the end of the world to turn and see what happened, and you follow suit.

Jake and Dirk are backing away from the kitchen door rapidly. Well, Jake is rapidly crabwalking away. Dirk is rubbing his head, presumably from where Jake tripped over him in his rush to get away from the door, but Dirk is also subtly trying to leave the general vicinity of the kitchen door.

“Do I even want to know what’s going on over there?” Jane asks, semi-rhetorically.

Jake shakes his head fervently ‘no.’

Dirk copies him a little more calmly a moment later.

“Out of curiosity,” he asks. “How attached are you to your kitchen table?”

Jane looks confused for a moment, then embarrassed, then furious.

“Um,” you say. “What?”

Dirk adjusts his shades slightly, and you really should have known better than to say something like that near a Strider. “You see,” he begins, “When a troll and another troll hate each other very, very much–”

“Oh my god.” you glance at the kitchen door panickedly. “What, on the table?”

“No, in the sink,” Dirk deadpans.

“On _my_ kitchen table?” Jane mutters furiously, and you edge away from her just a tiny bit.

There’s a crash from inside the kitchen.

The four of you stare at the door for a few seconds, then silently move a little further away.

“I can get a new table,” Jane decides. “That one was tacky, anyway.”

The four of you casually - very casually! - walk outside.

“So,” you say after a few minutes of desperately trying to think of a sufficiently distracting topic of conversation. “Um.”

“... someone should call Jade,” Jake decides.

Dirk shakes his head. “Too far out of range for the walkie-talkies.”

“Those have always worked in the past!” you protest. “Why aren’t they working now?”

You can tell that Dirk just rolled his eyes behind his shades, even though his expression hasn’t changed. “We’ve never been this far away before - we’re practically on the other side of the planet. Most of the planet is also beginning to be covered in radio relays, which can bounce the signal, but those haven’t gotten this far into the wilderness yet. Also, she’s probably asleep.”

Jane nods in agreement. “We can’t get any decent radio out here - only crummy music and the occasional coded rebellion broadcast.”

Dirk stares at her for a moment.

She flushes a bit - blue, isn’t that so weird? - and shrugs. “What? They’re sent on a really low frequency, so they get out here relatively ungarbled.”

“This is the Summoner’s rebellion, right?” you ask for clarification. Vriska had told you a lot about this one, but you wanted to be sure that it was the same one. “I mean, Spin doesn’t tell us much about it, and I have no clue how common rebellions are.”

“Yes, and not very,” Jane answers your questions in order. “Her Imperious Condescension has a… very effective method of discouraging rebellion.”

You don’t know Dirk very well, but you can tell that he tenses at this. You… you _think_ he glances up towards the roof - or maybe the balcony - of Darkleer’s hive. Towards the… oh, is that a void symbol?

Jane reaches out to touch his shoulder comfortingly. Well, sort of. She hesitates for a second when her hand is an inch or so from his shoulder before making contact, and when she does, Dirk flinches away. She withdraws her hand immediately, and withdraws inwards a bit.

You have no clue what just went on but you think it’s a relationship thing.

Jake is staring at them with a little frown on his face, trying to figure something out.

Dirk isn’t looking up at the void symbol anymore - he’s looking down a bit. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say he was… well, embarrassed.

Jane is drawn in, but she has her ‘pleasant hostess’ face on. That’s how you can tell that she’s really upset - she’s not using a more realistic face as a mask.

On reflection, the lot of you are pretty messed up.

Everyone’s silent again.

“So, how have you been, Jane?” you press on. You have a feeling that if you weren’t here, they would just sit here being awkward and miserable. Therefore, of course, you have to make three times the effort.

The two of you chat about what’s been going on over the course of the past ten sweeps - _‘Remember when the news came about Dualscar? Man, he was a jerk’_ \- and about how ridiculous Alternia can be at times.

It’s not until Jane starts talking about what changes specifically should be made that you realize what Spin was talking about Dirk talking about. Jane has a sort of… well, a sort of matter-of-factness about changing the world that makes it so that it just makes sense to listen to her.

The door to Darkleer’s hive bangs open when you’re halfway through thinking this, and Spin strides out.

“C’mon,” she announces. “Let’s go. Things to do. Places to rob.”

“Certain upcoming events to explain to idiots?” Dirk mutters under his breath.

Spin glares at him, then marches down the path that leads to the ships.

Jake lags behind a bit to say goodbye to Dirk and Jane, but you jog a bit to catch up to Spin.

“What was that about?” you ask her.

She doesn’t meet your eyes. “Nothing.”

“Spin–”

“Have you thought about the future much?” she asks abruptly.

You blink at the sudden change of topic. “Not really? I mean in a few centuries shit’s going to start to go down but that’s a pretty long way away. Why?”

She shrugs.

The two of you walk in silence for a bit.

“Have you thought about what would happen if–” she cuts herself off.

“If what?”

“Nothing.”

“That is literally the second time you’ve said ‘nothing’ in one conversation.”

She doesn’t reply.

“Spin, is something wrong?” You’re starting to get really worried.

“There’s an extremely important mission that I’m going to have for you in a few days,” she says suddenly. “Vital. Just giving you a heads-up.”

Oh… kay… “What is it?”

“There’s a special message that I need you to go deliver. It needs to be in person.” she tosses her hair absently. “You should probably take Jake and an airship or two, just in case.”

This isn’t the weirdest mission Spin’s given you, but it’s certainly up there, along with the most sudden.

“What’s the message going to be? And to who?”

“To _whom_ , and it’s going to be a letter, and don’t you dare open it. I’ll explain more in a few days.”

“How long should it take?” Is she trying to get rid of you for whatever mysterious event is coming up?

She tilts her head to the side for a moment, thinking.

You can hear Jake beginning to catch up.

“Probably about two weeks,” she decides finally.

That’s probably not long enough for whatever’s going to happen to happen, you decide.

She doesn’t meet your eyes for the rest of the walk back to the ships.


	20. Chapter 20

For the first few days that Dirk is at your hive, he doesn’t come out of his room.

Later, over the course of the next week or two, he comes out when Jane insists that he socialize, but he… droops, is the best word that you can think of. He is downcast, mostly silent, unsmiling. You get the impression that he doesn’t smile a lot even when he is happy, but both you and Jane can tell that he is, in this case, distinctly unhappy.

“He’s having a hard time because… well, because he has trouble picking which battles to fight,” Jane explains when you question her. “He doesn’t see why he can’t go help the rebellion – or rather, he sees why and hates himself for it.”

You… you suppose you can understand that. Dirk is tolerable, for a lowblood – mostly because he keeps to himself. You have more in common with him than you’d like to admit, however.

You are working in the basement one day (the basement is where you have all of your machinery; Jane insisted that you take it out of the kitchen and off the dining room table) when Dirk comes in.

This is surprising; he has been avoiding both you and Jane, but mostly you.

He hesitates at the door, rightly so. No lowblood would dare enter your domain without express permission.

“May I use some of your tools?”

You consider the request; on one hand, he will probably be unable to accidentally break them. On the other, he may be coming to you constantly to ask for help. Lowbloods know almost nothing about robotics.

On the third, it will be hilarious watching him fail to build anything.

You nod, but decide to lay down some ground rules. “Do not disturb me while I am working. If you break anything, you will either fix it or leave. Do not deplete my stores of materials too much.”

He nods, agreeing to your rules, then heads over to an unused workbench and begins to clear the junk off of it.

You watch him obliquely; the mirror at your own personal workbench is tilted so that you can observe him in his folly.

He takes out a small device that appears to be a modified two-way radio.

As you watch him tinker with it, you must admit that he appears at the very least competent. He appears to be trying to restore some aspect of its functionality.

Satisfied that he will not destroy your workspace, you turn back to your own project, only pausing to look back at him every so often.

Over the course of the next few weeks, Dirk comes to your workshop more and more. He seems happier, you suppose. Jane sighs exasperatedly when she has to bring food when both of you forget to eat, but you can tell that she doesn’t mind too much.

The two of you still don’t really talk to each other at all, though you’ve come to accept his presence.

He’s still doing something with his radio - he’s taken breaks to work on other projects, mostly robots of various kinds - but you have a feeling you know what he’s trying to fix, because he keeps lengthening the antenna.

“Do you have any size 0.1 pliers?” he asks abruptly.

You nod, then realize that he can’t see you, he’s so focused on his work. “I do. However, I do not think that they will help you lengthen the range of your communication device.”

He glances up. “Why not?”

“Because if you lengthen or otherwise expand that antenna any further, your power source will not be able to keep up with the energy drain,” you point out sensibly. “I do not know what technology you are used to working with, but there is just too much distance between here and Mindfang’s fleet most of the time for any type of communication.”

He looks like he’s about to protest, then slumps down. “I know. I’m too used to Earth technology, I haven’t really had a chance to adapt to Alternian tech.”

Your interest is piqued, you have to admit. “Is Earth’s technology so different than ours?”

He shakes his head. “Not especially different. Mostly it’s just more advanced, given that we’re technically from the future as well as a different universe. On Earth, even after most of civilization fell, there were relay towers pretty much covering the planet that I could bounce a signal off of. Here, you have simple short-distance radio communication and longer-distance broadcasts. There’s also the ansible for off-planet, but that’s so tightly controlled by the government that I bet Roxy couldn’t hack it.” He sounds wistful when talking about Roxy. You hope, for Jane’s sake, that they are not pale.

“Why not use the radio relays?”

“None of them are set up around here,” he explains. “And by the time the signal reaches the nearest ones, it’s so weak and garbled that I’m surprised it still even exists.”

“So you want to build your own relays, then?” you ask reasonably.

He stares at you blankly for a few seconds. This idea has clearly not occurred to him.

He turns around quickly and grabs some sketching paper, then begins drawing and muttering to himself.

This is the most animated you’ve ever seen him.

Jane is standing at the door, watching the two of you. She smiles at you, then outright grins at Dirk.

You turn back to your workbench, embarrassed. Partially because you were having a good time talking with a lowblood, and partially because Jane had been right when she said that you and Dirk would become friends.


	21. The Letter, part 1 of 4

“There’s a messenger,” a ceruleanblood simpers. “He says he has an urgent letter.”

You count slowly down from thirteen, to stop yourself from instructing the troll in proper reporting methods. “From whom?” you do make sure to lightly caress your wands, though. Just to make a bit of a point.

“He won’t say, your grandness.”

You raise one dark eyebrow. “Find out. And the proper style is either ‘your highness’ or simply ‘Overseer.’”

The troll blanches a bit, bows deeply, and backs away.

Machiavelli was right - being feared is _delightful_.

You do miss your friends quite a bit, though. Respect from fear is never the same as respect from… well, respect.

A lot of it is the throne, anyways.

You sit - you _hold court!_ \- in a manor on the pink moon. Everything is decorated with dark purple accented by gold and silver. Kurloz has a throne next to yours, though he rarely occupies it.

“He won’t say!” The whiny cerulean has returned. “... he said his name, though.”

You repress a sigh. Do you have to do everything yourself? “And that name is?”

The ceruleanblood grimaces. “Jawhn,” the troll says, overly enunciating the unfamiliar name.

You sit up. “Let him enter.”

“But, your highness–”

You lean forwards just a bit, letting a small combination of the horrorterrors and your chucklevoodoos fill the room. The lights seem to dim just a bit; your eyes appear to glow.

“Yes, your highness!” the troll squeaks. Seriously. their voice goes up an octave or two. They vanish through the door to go bring…

To go bring John.

In front of your entire court.

You sincerely hope you’ll be able to avoid bursting into laughter or tears.

John enters, the cerulean troll skipping ahead awkwardly to try and announce him.

You wave the troll away and smirk at John.

He grins back, then mutes the grin.

“You may approach,” you say calmly.

He approaches until he’s a few meters away from your throne and bows.

_Well,_ you think, almost admiringly. _Someone’s taught him manners._

“Your highness,” he recites, and the cerulean troll glares at him even more than before. “I bring a letter from the Marquise Spinneret Mindfang.” he holds out the letter in front of him as shocked murmurs echo through the court. Mindfang is a dangerous outlaw, though one admired (and feared) by many trolls.

Normally, one of your attendants would take the letter and give it to you after checking it for poison and traps. This time, though, you feel safe in retrieving it yourself, so you wave the aides away.

“We thank you for the delivery of this letter,” you tell John. (The ‘we’ is because you also technically represent Kurloz.) “Have you leave to stay a while?”

“Yes, your highness,” he replies. (You bet she told him to only reply in ‘yesses’ or ‘nos.’)

“Then stay for a while,” you order. “And I would like to meet with you in private this morning to discuss the contents of your letter.” You stand, descending the few steps down the dais to where John is still waiting with the letter, ignoring the gasps from your court, and take the letter from his outstretched hand. “Try not to make _too_ much of a fool of yourself,” you joke quietly when you’re close enough so that no one else can hear.

He grins back at you - he still has that goofy grin, after all these years - and bows again. “Of course not, m’lady.”

John’s general demeanor and usual mannerisms combined with these courtly actions almost have you bursting into laughter in the middle of your court, and that would be extremely unseemly. “Go mingle,” you tell him again quietly, still struggling not to laugh, and back away to your throne.

As John heads over to a mixed group of cerulean to purple trolls, you lean back on your throne and motion to your herald to deter any more petitioners or idiots.

And then, you unseal the letter to see what Marquise Spinneret Mindfang has to say to you.


	22. The Letter, part 2 of 4

 

_To Rose Lalonde, the Grand Overseer and Co-Leader of the Subjugglators:_

_Listen._

_You know as well as I do - or you should - what’s going to happen to me._

_This is my attempt to get John and Jake away from the ensuing carnage. Break the news to him gently, please; you know how he is about this sort of thing, and we can’t have him vowing revenge or something silly like that. You might want to send them on to Jade. She’s been living in the Disciple’s old cave, you know the one. I think Dave stopped by when Jade was out traveling with us._

_All of your others are at Darkleer’s place, except for Roxy. His void abilities are keeping them well hidden. He also has the cue ball, my journal, and my dice, ready for my descendant. Do tell her not to be quite as much of an idiot about Redglare’s and Summoner’s descendants than I was with them._

_Lastly, Her Imperiousness._

_I’ve been trying to find out information about her, but some of the time, I can’t. It may be due to the nature of the questions I’ve been asking, but it still means that I don’t have a chance to forewarn you quite as much. Enclosed is a tentative list of times she might be getting suspicious of you; do try not to mess everything up._

_Tell John I’m sorry for deceiving him like this. And for everything else._

_-Marquise Aranea Spinneret Mindfang_


	23. The Letter, part 3 of 4

John’s refused to come out of his room ever since Rose broke the news, and you’re starting to worry about him just a bit.

All right, you’ve been pretty torn up, too, but honestly you were never really all that close to Mindfang. John was… well, John was practically her moirail, not that they ever admitted it.

So, you gather up your courage and go knock on Rose’s door.

The door creaks open - this is _so creepy_ , Rose is _terrifying_ \- but you take a breath and press on inside.

She’s sitting on a delicate lavender couch, almost swamped by her massive moirail.

You gulp a bit. He’s also terrifying. Rose is pretty much just terrifying in a Dirk way, but the Grand Highblood is just plain terrifying. (You keep remembering almost getting eaten by giant sea goat lusii. Those aren’t particularly pleasant memories.)

“Jake,” Rose says calmly. “Come in. Was there something you wanted?”

“Well,” You begin, consider what you were about to say, reconsider, then think _oh, screw this,_ and continue. “It’s just that John’s been all upset and locked himself in his room and there’s not much I can do about it, so I was wondering if you had any way to get in contact with Jade, because our communicators don’t reach quite that far.”

Rose smiles a bit. “In fact, I do, and I already have. If she’s still where I think she is, she should be here in about a day, if she agrees to come here.”

You nod, relieved, thank her, and back out of the room.

Well, that solves that. Jade can handle pretty much anything John does, and won’t put up with all of his ridiculous bullcrap.

There’s not much you can do now, so you go sit in your room and start drawing up the schematics for a few upgrades you’ve been wanting to make to your airship for a while – you’re not as good at robotics as Dirk or Jade, but you’re not all that bad, either. They’re both just sort of ridiculously good, as evidenced by the ‘communication devices’ (*cough* walkie talkies). Yours is sitting right next to you on your desk, with the little green blinking light saying that there’s an incoming call–

What.

You stare at it for a few minutes, the scramble to press the ‘accept call’ button.

“ _–Come in, this is Dirk calling from the hive of Expatriate Darkleer, can anyone hear me?_ ”

You stare at it for a few minutes.

“ _God dammit,_ ” Dirk continues. “ _Seriously. Is it really too hard for the fucking Empire to put up radio relays where they would actually be useful? But no, here I am stuck in the middle of fuckall nowhere –_ again – _apparently out of reach of any intelligent life._ ” You hear him sigh. “ _I may as well just continue ranting into this, I literally do not have any patience left. I refuse to even attempt to broaden the signal again for another twenty-four hours._ ” There’s the sound of a rolly chair rolling away. “ _Hey, Dave, you up for another game of monopoly?_ ”

You press the ‘call’ button and clear your throat. “Come in, Dirk, this is Jake, do you copy?” Wow, that sounds stupid as fuck. Oh well.

There’s silence for a moment.

“ _Jake? Where the fuck are you? How are you close enough to even be getting this, I thought that you were in the middle of the ocean?_ ”

“Well, there’s a bit of a story there. See, I’m actually at Rose’s… well, ‘Palace’ really is the proper term, I think, on the near side of the Pink Moon.”

Dirk whistles. “ _Which raises the question of how the fuck is this transmission reaching all the way to the Pink Moon?_ ”

“ _Maybe it’s jumping off of the Empire’s satellite relays,”_ Dave suggests faintly. “ _I mean, this thing is really static-y, I can barely hear a goddamned thing._ ”

You hear the sound of a thud, one that you strongly suspect is Dirk’s head on the desk. “ _Goddammit, I’m an idiot, I should have been working off the satellite relays instead of the ground relays, that would have been_ so much more effective–“ He breaks off, and you can hear some rummaging around that you assume is Dirk getting distracted with a new idea. This happens a lot – he’s never really gotten used to talking to people in real time, so sometimes he’ll just stop in the middle of a conversation and go do something else. You get used to it.

“ _Right, sorry, Jake, you still there?_ ”

And he’s back again. “Yep,” you reply. “… So, how are things going over there?”

“ _… All right,_ ” Dirk says after a pause. “ _How are things – no, wait, why are you at Rose’s palace?_ ”

“Well…” you hesitate a bit. “Is Dave still listening in?”

“ _No,_ ” Dave comments. “ _I’m in a completely different room. I can’t hear anything you’re saying right now._ ”

You roll your eyes. _Striders._ “Uh… Well, Mindfang didn’t really want John there when she died, so–”

There are a few crashes to be heard. In retrospect, you could have phrased that a little less callously.

Oh well.

“So she sent us off to deliver this letter to Rose and now we’re here,” you finish.

“ _Okay,_ ” you hear Dirk say once the racket on the other end has died down. “ _Do you know if the letter said anything other than–_ “ He breaks off suddenly.

“Dirk?” you ask after a few moments of silence.

“ _This is going off of Imperial relays,_ ” he says slowly. “ _This is being transmitted through– fuck. Son of a goddamn syphilitic whore. I am such a fucking idiot–_ ” Everything turns to static.

You stare down at the receiver, then shrug. You’ll get Jade to pop by when she shows up – she’ll be able to figure out what the hell Dirk was going on about.


	24. The Letter, part 4 of 4

Rose’s palace is honestly a little silly in your opinion. It’s cool and badass and stuff, it just looks like it’s… trying too hard, you guess

Trolls tend to be a little less discerning about stuff like that, though, so you figure it’s probably fine.

“This way, miss,” The tealblood directs you. He’s been surprisingly polite, for an almost-highblood with a position in the Subjugglator’s court. He even didn’t freak out much when you teleported him here along with you. “The Overseer said that she’d like to see you as soon as you arrived.”

He leads you to Rose’s room, then waits outside while you enter.

Her room is a much more reserved shade of lavender, decorated with gold and dark grey highlights.

She’s in the middle of some paperwork when you enter. Her back is to the door, but you can tell that she hears you enter. “I swear, if there is another snobbish delegate from the Cavalreapers to assure me that they didn’t know of his rebellion, I will _eviscerate_ you.”

“I have a feeling that would be pretty unpleasant for both of us,” you comment.

She whirls around, eyes wide. “Jade?”

You grin. “Yep!”

She almost seems to collapse in relief, then straightens herself. “I’m glad you’re here. John’s… well.”

You sigh. “What happened?”

Rose flinches a bit, almost imperceptibly. “Mindfang passed on the duty of conveying the news of her current state of mortality to me.”

You take a minute to parse the sentence. “Wow, that sounds like a pretty horrible thing for her to do.”

Rose shrugs. “To be fair, she was a pretty horrible person.”

You nod. “So, you want me to convince John to start talking to you again?”

Rose rolls her eyes. “At this point, I’d be happy if you could convince him to come out of his room.”

You raise your eyebrows. “That sounds ridiculous. Should I go take care of that now, then?”

“Just one more thing. Jake had a few questions about something that Dirk apparently did?”

She describes the incident to you, and you roll your eyes. “Well, that’s just obvious. He panicked because he was worried about there being someone listening in, since he was using Imperial relays. Nobody probably was listening in, but it’s still a bit of a risk. We should really try setting up a few secure relays for future use…” you and Rose begin making a few plans, but then she has to leave to go “deal with some idiots.”

You consider teleporting directly into his room, then decide that would be a little too sudden. You teleport to just outside his door instead.

_Bang. Bang. Bang._

You keep banging on his door until he yells out at you. “God damn it, Rose, just leave me alone already!”

“John, if you don’t open this door within a count of ten, I’ll blast it open!” You reply back.

_10\. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4…_

John yanks the door open and stares at you for a few seconds.

You walk past him into his rooms. They’re pretty torn up – it looks like there’s been a hurricane or something in here. (There’s probably a reason for that.)

This whole palace is just not the right place for John.

He’s still standing by the door, looking a little shellshocked. You peek your head outside the door to the nice tealblood who’s just managed to catch up with you.

“I’m taking John over to Darkleer’s hive,” you tell him. Darkleer’s isn’t really welcoming either, but at least John and Dave will be able to mope together. (You have no doubt Dave is moping. It’s just sort of what Dave does.) “Tell the Overseer, will you?”

Then you grab John and teleport away.

You have some serious shooshpapping to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates will now resume at the regular snail's pace.


	25. Chapter 25

You wander around a lot.

Well, you did that before you spent a few sweeps at Darkleer’s hive, but you do it even more afterwards.

Staying cooped up in one place just reminds you of _Her_. Then again, so does wandering, though not quite as much. If you’re wandering, you’re too busy focusing on the new place and new people, new survival tactics and manners that you can ignore, new law enforcement to get on the wrong side of. You don’t time travel much – getting ahead of your friends would be convenient for you at first, but you’d miss a lot. And it would be embarrassing to be decades younger than them.

Ha, you’re going to tease Karkat about that so much when he gets here.

John joins you for a bit, and you complain about how horribly impossible and ridiculous she was. He leaves after a while, though – you feel like John was made for wandering, but not wandering alone, and you don’t really function as people a lot of the time.

Jade joins you for a bit after that, but she really likes having one place to return to. She and John finally end up getting a pretty big place on the Pink Moon, not too far from Rose’s ridiculous palace but far enough so that nobody could get suspicious.

Most of the time, you stay in lockstep with your friends, time-wise. You get the feeling that you should stay pretty much the same age as them, even though none of you are really aging.

You find the Handmaid a few more times, blow stuff up, call it a day. She freaks you out almost as much as Rose can when she’s being all Highblood-y.

About a century in, Rose contacts you. Well, really, she contacts Dirk who gets Jane to contact John who gets Jade to look for you, and that whole process takes about half a sweep.

“I have a Plan,” she tells you, and you can hear the capital P.

“What sort of a plan?” you ask cautiously. “Like, are we talking a blowing-shit-up plan or a big-damn-heroes plan or a run-the-fuck-away plan?”

“Better,” she says, smirking a bit. “We’re going to make a prophecy.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You’re really embracing this whole ‘change things slowly’ thing, with a side helping of fucking with Condie.”

“I really am, aren’t I?” she muses a bit. “Anyway, I have a few ideas for how this ‘prophecy’ should go…”

“If it doesn’t rhyme, I’m not helping,” you interject.

“Has anyone ever told you how petty you are?” she grumbles a bit.

“If it doesn’t rhyme, it’s not going to do fuckall,” you point out, rather reasonably.

“Fine, then,” she concedes. “Give me a few days to rework it.”

You give her a few days, argue a bit more, write one yourself, have her completely reject it, repeat ad infinitum.

The whole thing is only put to a rest when Jade drops by and threatens to lock the two of you in a room together until you’ve got it all worked out.

The final prophecy looks something like this:

_The Sufferer’s heir will come_

_His Sign displayed for all to see_

_The Empire’s terror shall be undone_

_And we shall then be free._

You’re not certain it’ll ever take off, but Rose likes it, so you go and dutifully carve it into a few mountainsides and gossip in a few taverns. Just for fun, you consider adding in a few lines about Jane, but decide against it.

You meet a cute brownblood with a touch of foresight a sweep or two later, and she takes one look at you and can’t stop laughing. “You need to remember,” she tells you once she’s managed to stop giggling every few seconds, “That even after the twelve, there are still three. Just… keep it in mind. Then there’ll be two. If everything works out.”

Fucking Seers.

You write what she said down, just in case, and go drop it off with John and Jade, and an extra copy with Dirk and Jane, because they’re at least five times more responsible.

Around then is when Jake accompanies you on your wanderings.

He adds a whole different dimension to it – you’re running for your lives closer to 60% of the time now, instead of the nice, reasonable 35% you’d been keeping it at. There are also many more explosions. Jake is a little like both John and Jade in that way, you realize after a bit, in that he’s as wild as John can be and as dangerous as Jade can be, but he’s even more idealistic than either of them.

You have to admit that the airship is ridiculously badass, though.

It only starts to get complicated after you run afoul of a few legislacerators. Both of you get out fine and retreat to the airship.

“Gosh,” Jake says. “That sure was a scrimmage there, wasn’t it?”

“You call that a scrimmage?”

“Well,” he reasons, “It certainly wasn’t anywhere near a full-on rumpus.”

You stare at him for a few seconds and shake your head. “Has anyone ever told you how ridiculous you are?”

“Dirk does quite often,” he replies cheerfully.

The two of you sit in silence for a bit, his darker green eyes watching you through your shades, biting his lip softly –

Oh _fuck_ no.

You stand up abruptly and tell him that you need to go clean up, maybe sleep a bit, seriously, English, how are you even still this excited, we’ve been running for _hours_.

He accepts your excuse, giving you space to sit down and start panicking a bit.

Both of you are a little awkward with each other after that, enough so that Jake eventually goes to stay with John and Jade for a bit, which turns into a longer bit, which turns into Jane and Dirk moving in with the rest of the group, too, because technically they’re not even supposed to be on the planet any more.

(You stay away for a while after that because their moving in with the others means that Darkleer’s died and you can’t handle grieving people.)

Rose is spending about one or two perigees a sweep staying at the hive on the Pink Moon, and it’s during what you thought was one of those perigees when she tracks you down on the far side of the Green Moon.

“You should just come stay,” she tells you. “You’ve been hovering around it for a decade now. They’re not going to die, especially not because of some imagined bad luck following you.”

That’s not what it’s about, you want to say, except it sort of is. Rose has always been too discerning for her own good.

She rolls her eyes and huffs. “Oh, come on. It’s, what, seventy-five sweeps till they get here? Just come home already.”

She turns and stalks away; to spite her, you wander around for another sweep and a half, but honestly even you have to admit that it’s sort of started getting tedious.

So, you come home.


	26. Chapter 26

You’re dying.

It’s pretty expected – you’re ridiculously old, even for a purpleblood.

You’ve been expecting it for a while, so you’ve pretty much accepted it.

Rose, however, has not.

She stalks into your quarters, practically dragging Jane by the arm. Jane is holding up rather well for being basically kidnapped by a subjugglator; she only looks mildly annoyed, rather than terrified out of her mind.

“ _Heal him,_ ” Rose nearly hisses, and shoves Jane towards you.

You exchange a weary glance with her; she knows that you can’t be saved as much as you know it.

“Rose,” Jane says carefully. “I deal with wounds, the occasional sickness. I can’t do anything about old age.”

Rose collapses onto a sofa. You reach out an arm to her, cursing its shakiness. You hate feeling this weak.

Good thing it’ll end soon, then.

“How am I supposed to do this without you?” she asks you quietly.

Jane backs out of the room.

You shrug, then stroke the side of her face. _You’ll do fine._

“But what if I don’t? What if we–” She breaks off you can see her reconsidering her next sentence.

(Honestly, you think, it’s hilarious how she doesn’t think you know about her whole rebellion thing that she’s got going.)

You roll your eyes and grab one of her hands, squeezing it tightly. _You will do fine, no matter what you think. Calm down; it’s going to be okay._

(The Condesce had contacted you a few days ago. The transmission was fuzzy, since she was a few systems away, but it was still intelligible. She laughed when she gave your report, the one where you lied to her again. You don’t betray your moirail.

“I know what’s going down better than you think,” she had whispered.

You’ve decided that you have no clue what the hell is going on with her, but that Rose is probably safe for now.)

(Well, she might not be, with what you’re about to give her.)

You take a deep shuddering breath; you haven’t spoken in a century or so, but this is important.

“Listen,” you rasp. “You, _and your heretics_ , will be fine. Take this.” You shove the box that you’ve been hiding for even longer than you’ve known her into her hands.

She puts it aside as you start to cough and hack. “Kurloz–“

You grip her hand tightly. You don’t ever want to let go.

You’re going to have to, soon – rigor mortis while holding someone’s hand isn’t very pleasant for the other party.

“You knew this was going to happen,” you say hoarsely. “Not all of us can be immortal. Stay with your other friends. Don’t lose yourself in politics, and don’t forget to kill a fucker if they’re pissing you off too much.” You stop to cough again.

“Okay.” She sounds much more calm and collected. “I… Okay, Kurloz, don’t wear yourself out–”

You raise an eyebrow.

She rolls her still-wet eyes at you.

“Don’t be an idiot,” you continue with some of your last strength. “She’s gonna have a plan, too.”

She nods. You can tell that by now, she’s realized that you have probably a few minutes yet.

“Go look at the box.”

She takes the box, and looks at it.

“Open it, smartass.”

She smirks a bit and opens it – and then stops dead.

“Kurloz,” she whispers.

“Rose,” you reply.

(It’s great that your last moments consist of being able to surprise your unsurprisable moirail – who would have thought that the Sufferer’s necklace and a lot of the details of his plans would shock her so much?)


	27. Chapter 27

“They’re here,” You announce one day.

“Who’re here, Rose?” John asks blearily.

To be fair, you probably shouldn’t have woken them all up in the middle of the day just to tell them this, but you _do_ need to decide on the proper course of action.

To be unfair, you’ve been telling them that they’ll be here soon for sweeps. (You’ve gotten a little vindictive since Kurloz’s death.)

To be completely objective, that past sentence was just as confusing as your announcement. You suppose you should clarify things, then.

You glance over at Dirk, in search of backup and as proof that you’re not the only one actually paying attention to things, but he’s fallen back asleep, his head resting on Jane’s shoulder.

You sigh, and decide to be blunt for once. “Our… well, our _other_ Alternian friends have arrived.”

You give them a minute or so for their announcement to penetrate their thinkpans.

Jake falls out of his chair.

“Oh, good,” Jade yawns. “Can we go back to sleep now?”

You roll your eyes and nod.

 

After everyone’s had a good day’s sleep, you explain things to them again.

“We need to decide how we’re going to do this,” you clarify. “Are we just going to go talk to them now? Are we going to wait a few sweeps until they’re adults?”

“We go find them immediately, duh,” John replies.

Dirk stares at his plate, thinking. “The sooner we contact them, the sooner _She’ll_ notice, the less prepared they’ll be. I say we wait.”

You look down. You want to go see Kanaya. You really, _really_ want to go see Kanaya. But…

But Dirk has a point.

Jade is nodding. “Dirk’s right. I don’t like it, but Dirk’s right. However much we want to go find them, we can’t risk them being unprepared to face her, because then we’re all fucked.”

“They’re well prepared,” Dave argues. “ _We’re_ well prepared. Is the Condesce tougher than the Black King?”

Your first instinct is to reply _Yes_ just to spite him. Your second is to reply _Yes_ because it’s true; you finally settle on a third option. “No,” you agree with Dave. “However, she’s much smarter and a few thousand times more experienced. No matter what, it’s certain that she has a few tricks up her sleeve that we don’t know about. I…” you take a deep breath. “I’m not willing to risk their lives - to risk the rest of eternity with them - for a few sweeps.”

Everyone’s silent after that. Dave’s not looking at you. You know he wants to see Terezi and Karkat as much as you want to see Kanaya. Even just thinking their names, _any_ of their names, gives you a bit of a rush. You’ve been trying to keep them off your mind so that you don’t miss them as much, and allowing yourself to think about them… it’s like smelling the forbidden fruit, knowing that it’s just within reach, and desperately wanting to take a bite.

… Now you’re just thinking of bites and Kanaya and oh dear, you’re blushing, aren’t you.

With a ridiculous amount of effort, you return your concentration to the table.

Jade’s hand is resting on Dave’s arm, and she’s whispering at him to calm down.

John also doesn’t look very happy about the whole situation, but honestly he also looks a little relieved. You deduce that he still hasn’t decided what to do about the whole Vriska situation.

Jane looks mildly upset – you know she liked Fefetasprite – but she also looks pretty resigned to the situation.

Jake looks like he’s still half asleep.

Dirk is stoic, as always, but he has that microexpression on his face that he gets when he’s telling people things that they don’t want to hear but need to. He hates doing it almost as much as you do, but he’ll do it.

“Fine,” Dave says after another minute of badly-hushed whispering. “Fine. We’ll fucking wait.”

So you wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the first half or so is complete. I should have the first chapter of the sequel up shortly.  
> Thank you to everyone who kudos'd, bookmarked, or commented! You are all fantastic people.


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